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Missing Indian man finds family with help of TikTok

A TikTok video intended to encourage people to help the poor had an unintended result when it succeeded in reuniting R Venkateshwarlu with his family  - TikTok 
A TikTok video intended to encourage people to help the poor had an unintended result when it succeeded in reuniting R Venkateshwarlu with his family - TikTok

An Indian man has been reunited with his family after a TikTok video encouraging people to help the poor went viral.

R Venkateshwarlu, who has hearing and speech difficulties, went missing two years ago after falling asleep in the back of a truck in Telangana.

Until then he had spent all his life in a village in the southern state of Telangana, where he was employed as a labourer and had a wife and five children.

"My father fell asleep and the truck driver didn't know he was there. Several kilometres later, the driver realised my father was in the truck and so he dropped him off on the middle of the road and left him there," his son, R Peddiraju, told the BBC.

Following a series of mishaps, compounded by Mr Venkateshwarlu’s communication issues and a language barrier, he ended up surviving on food donations in the northern state of Punjab, more than 1,200 miles away from his home.

Mr Venkateshwarlu was then spotted by a family friend in a video by Punjab police constable Ajaib Singh, who was donating food and essential items to migrant workers and the poor in Ludhiana.

Mr Signh’s TikTok channel, which has more than 800,000 followers, is known for its videos of charitable acts.

Back in Telangana, the friend alerted Mr Venkateshwarlu’s family, who contacted Ludhiana police and tracked him down. The family have now been reunited and have returned to their village.

"I burst into tears when I first saw him," his son said.