A woman in India has been reunited with her husband, who was missing for three years, after he was recognised in a TikTok video.
According to reports, the woman, named Jayapradha from Tamil Nadu, India, had last seen her husband Suresh in 2016, and presumed he was ‘missing’ ever since.
Despite searching for him, and filing a complaint with the police over their lack of results in tracing him, the missing husband was declared ‘lost’.
Recently, however, a relative of Jayapradha said she had seen a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Suresh in a video on the social video sharing app TikTok.
Jayapradha immediately recognised the man as her husband Suresh, and went to the police so they could help track him down using the new video.
Authorities found Suresh living in the city of Hosur, in Tamil Nadu, who eventually told his wife and police what had happened.
According to India Today, Suresh revealed how he had abandoned his family because he felt there were issues at home he could not solve, and decided to flee to Hosur.
He worked in the city as a mechanic, and while there struck up a relationship with a trans woman, who also appeared in the TikTok video.
Police were able to locate Suresh thanks to an organisation that works with trans women and men.
As police in Tamil told BBC News:
We contacted a transgender organisation in the district who were able to help us identify the transgender woman in the photo.
According to reports, the police have offered counselling to the estranged coupled, who have decided to reconcile and stay together, despite the circumstances.
A spokesperson for the police told The News Minute:
We asked him whether he wanted to go back to his wife and kids. He agreed to go back. Therefore, we sent the couple back.
TikTok is hugely popular in India, with more than 120 million users in the country. However, it has also faced criticism over inappropriate content.
Earlier this year, the Madras High Court ordered a ban on the app due to concerns for child safety. Members of Tamil Nadu’s legislative assembly had also previously tried to ban TikTok because of the ‘high prevalence of obscene content’. However, the ban was lifted shortly after it was put in place.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.