Three years ago, three little sisters were torn apart after the death of their only surviving parent. While two of them had found home at an orphanage, the third one was rendered homeless and on the streets. As fate would have it, the sisters were reunited on Sunday.

“It was a twist of fate that did it,” Hyderabad District Welfare Officer Akeshwar Rao told Indian Express.

“At our state orphanages, officials and counsellors encourage children’s participation by conducting several events. One of them was a science fair held early this year. Some photos of the fair were circulated among the orphanages and two girls, aged 12 and 14, told their caretakers that a girl in some of them resembled their lost sister,” Akeshwar Rao said.

“These girls were living with their father but when he died three years ago, they were moved to the orphanage. They had been telling officials that they had a younger sister, too, who was living with their grandmother. They also described her features, which matched those of the girl in the photos,’’ he continued.

“We later found that the youngest sister had been rescued up from the streets by our own officers two years ago, and was put up in a different orphanage. We believe that she started wandering the streets after her grandmother died…When we brought the youngest sibling to the two elder sisters, she did not recognise them. But they were confident she was their lost sister. We decided to conduct a DNA test on all three of them, which matched,’’ Akeshwar added.

The two elder sisters had also been separated briefly earlier but were reunited after they got in touch with officials. The officials admitted the younger one at a child care institution when she was found. Later, she was relocated to a government-run social welfare institution. Surprisingly, she never mentioned having siblings during her stay.

According to Telangana DGP M Mahender Reddy, there are teams, comprising women officials, to rescue children wandering the streets. They are identified, their families traced, and then reunited or sent to welfare homes.

Telangana Police rescued 1,293 children last year, out of which 743 were lucky enough to find their way back to their families.