For 45 years, he let his family believe him dead in a plane crash because he was ashamed of the failures in his life.

A man who pretended to be dead for 45 years is about to be reunited with his family. Sajid Thungal, he is 70 years old today, and since 1974 he left his home in Kottayam (India) to go to work organizing events with singers and dancers in Abu Dhabi.

Two years later, while flying to the Indian city of Chennai with a group of artists with whom he had worked for 10 days, his plane was involved in an accident. It was October 1976 and Sajid was 22 years old.

At the time, all 95 people on board, including crew members and passengers on the Indian Airlines flight to Madras, were reportedly killed after one of the aircraft’s engines burned down and the crash of the machine.

Sajid survived the crash, but chose not to contact his family. He felt guilty for what had happened and considered his career a failure. In 1982 he moved to Mumbai and has lived there ever since.

“I didn’t contact the family because I felt like a failure”, Sajid told the National News.

“I was destined to make a fortune in the Gulf and I didn’t. So I kept thinking that I would do something for myself in Bombay and then contact everyone. But that didn’t happen either. In this way, 45 years have passed “added.

For the past two years, Sajid has lived in a homeless shelter, where he was taken by a friend who found him on the street in a terrible state.

The Seal Ashram shelter is run by Pastor KM Phillip, who ordered that an investigation be carried out at the Kottayam Mosque to find his family and see if they still live in the same town.

Incredibly, the Imam knew Sajid’s family and would have been surprised to learn that he was still alive.

Pastor Philippe said: “They were surprised to learn that he was alive. Her father passed away a long time ago, but her mother is 91 years old. “

Sajid had a video call with his family in which he could barely speak due to his emotion.

“I want to go home. If the people here hadn’t taken care of me, I would have died without finding my family,” said the Indian.

His brother, Mohammed Kunju is about to arrive in Mumbai to pick up Sajid and take him home.

Mohammed told local media that his family never forgot his brother and even traveled to Abu Dhabi to look for him.

“I showed his photo everywhere but nobody knew anything. Now that he’s finally coming home, we won’t lose sight of him ”, Mohammed confessed.

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