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Koshy Jesudas and his wife Praisy during hoiday in Europe.Koshy Jesudas and his wife Praisy during hoiday in Europe.

Dilshad Hussain

Indian and Pakistani’s friendship helps retrieve lost bag

The two friends and man who got back his bag plan to meet in Dubai to celebrate friendship across hostile borders

Abu Dhabi: When Koshy Jesudas lost his handbag after he landed in Muscat on a flight from Italy on July 9, he anxiously thought how he would go back to Saudi Arabia, his country of residence.

“My important documents including Saudi and Kuwait ID cards [as he works in both countries], driving licence, several ATM cards and some cash were inside the bag,” Jesudas, 50, an Indian, told Gulf News on Sunday on phone from Dammam in Saudi Arabia.

Another passenger had mistakenly taken Koshy’s bag and left behind his bag on the flight. “I did not touch that bag and registered a complaint with the airline and continued travelling to Kochi [in south Indian state of Kerala],” said Jesudas who was on the way back from a holiday in Europe with his wife. “As there was no reply from the airline for the next two days, I was worried,” said the manager of a stationery supplies firm, who has been living in Dammam for 29 years.

However, he did not know that a friendship between an unknown compatriot and a Pakistani man would bring back his bag!

Lawrence Vadukut, a businessman in Kerala, received a message on July 9 from Dilshad Hussain, his friend working at Lahore Airport in Pakistan, seeking his help to reach the Indian owner of a bag that reached the lost and found section.

Vadukut and Hussain became friends two years back after a similar episode of a lost-and-found bag. “Since then we became good friends and we have always been in touch,” Vadukut told Gulf News on phone on Sunday.

Since he received Hussain’s message on July 9 about Jesudas’ bag, Vadukut’s efforts to reach the owner through his contacts and social media were not successful. “Finally, several google searches with his name led me to a classified advertisement with his name and number on July 11 night,” Vadukut said.

Jesudas said he was surprised that Vadukut reached him through an online advertisement he had posted two years back in Kuwait. “As I am not on social media, there was no means for them to reach me,” he said.

He got in touch with Hussain who sent the bag to Dammam on July 14 as Jesudas was returning to the city the same night after his vacation. “Hussian had put all important documents in an envelope and kept it safely inside the bag. I felt he is a true representative of God!”

Hussain who works in the lost-and-found section at the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore gives credit to God. “I think Allah has kept me at a Pakistani airport to help my Indian friends,” he told Gulf News on Sunday on phone from Lahore.

He said a Pakistani passenger travelling from Muscat to Lahore had mistakenly taken Jesudas’ bag and submitted it at the lost baggage section. “When my initial attempts failed, I contacted my Indian friend [Vadukut],” Hussain said.

Jesudas said he would definitely meet Hussain one day. “It may not be easy to visit Pakistan but we will try to meet in Dubai, along with Vadukut.”

As Gulf News reported on June 12, 2016, Vadukut’s nephew, Ajay Joyson, lost his bag with important original official documents and valuables on a flight to Kochi from Jeddah. After quitting his job in Saudi Arabia, he was flying to Kochi in India on May 19, 2016 for a ten-day break before joining a new job in London.

The lost bag had a strange journey to Lahore from Kochi in India after reaching the lost baggage section at the Jeddah airport on the return flight.

Incidentally, when the same flight took off for Lahore and came back to Jeddah, a passenger complained about his lost bag. As Joyson’s bag suited the description in the complaint, it was sent to Lahore but the complainant denied it for the obvious reason.

Hussain, then a baggage supervisor at Lahore Airport, chanced upon the bag with an empty name tag. An Indian flag tied with the bag hinted the owner’s citizenship only but no other contact details. If Hussain had sent the unnamed bag back to Jeddah, it would have ended up again among scores of lost bags there.

After failing all efforts to reach the owner, Hussain managed to reach Joyson’s uncle, Vadukut, on Facebook and sent the bag safely to Kochi before Joyson left for London.