Parents in China find son abducted outside hotel 32 years ago
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Beijing: A touching story of a reunion of a man, kidnapped as a toddler 32 years ago, with his biologial parents in China has hit news headlines.
The Chinese man kidnapped 32 years ago met his parents after police used facial recognition technology to help track him down, news agencies reported.
Mao Yin was just two when he was snatched outside a hotel in Xi'an in 1988 and was sold to a childless couple in neighbouring Sichuan province. The couple raised him as their own son, Xi'an's public security bureau said in a statement.
Police "aged" one of Mao's childhood photos, according to the state broadcaster CCTV, and used the model to scan the national database and find close matches.
They were acting on a tip-off that a person in a certain area of Sichuan had bought a child in the late 1980s.
On Monday, the now 34-year-old had an emotionally charged reunion with his biological parents who made a spirited pursuit to find their missing son. Mao's mother Li Jingzhi told CCTV that after he was kidnapped, she quit her job and sent over 100,000 flyers to officials and appeared on several TV channels to appeal for his return.
Over the past three decades, Li had followed 300 false leads to see if they were her missing son.
But in late April, police in Xi'an got a tip off that a man in Sichuan province had bought a child from Shaanxi in the late 1980s, according to the statement from Xi'an officials.
Police tracked down Mao and later after a DNA test confirmed he was the abducted son of Li Jingzhi.
Mao's adoptive parents had renamed him Gu Ningning, and he grew up without any knowledge of his birth parents or that he had been abducted.
At the reunion event, organised by Xi'an police, Mao emerged from a side door to a conference room and ran into his mother's arms.
"I don't want him to leave me any more. I won't let him leave me any more," Li said as she held onto her son's hand.
Mao, who runs a home decoration business in Sichuan, told CCTV he would move to Xi'an to live with his birth parents.
Police have helped more than 6,300 abducted children to reunite with their families over the past decade through the DNA matching system, official news agency Xinhua reported.
Kidnapping and child trafficking became widespread in China from the 1980s, when the draconian one-child rule was enforced, with a cultural obsession with sons also raising demand for kidnapped babies.