Pakistan Defence

Mumbai (CNN) -- When I first heard that a nine-year-old boy had been found tied to a bus stop in Mumbai, I was surprised. He can't have been, I thought. In Mumbai?​

When I found out where the bus stop in question was, I was even more surprised. I pass by that area often. I'd never seen a young boy chained to a pole.​

Had I passed by and just not noticed?​

Like me, thousands of Mumbaikars didn't see Lakhan Kale, who suffers from cerebral palsy, on the pavement.​

According to the last census conducted in 2011, around 26.8 million people are in living with disabilities in India. That's 2.2% of the population of more than 1.2 billion. Other bodies, including the World Bank, say the figure is much higher.​

However, many of disabled people, like Lakhan, are allowed to quietly fade into the background in a populous country wracked by poverty where the worth and survival of many depends on their ability to work.​

Let me tell you Lakhan's story.​

Life on the pavement​

In addition to cerebral palsy, the general term for a group of neurological conditions that affect the body's movement and coordination, Lakhan is deaf and mute. "He was fine when he was born, in fact he was a chubby baby," his paternal grandmother Sakubai recalls. She says a few months later, Lakhan developed a high fever. "One night, he shook violently," she says. "He was never the same again."​

Sakubai tears up when she talks to us about her grandson. We meet her at her home -- a grimy stretch of pavement, right behind the bus stop. Desperately poor, this is where she lives. She sleeps here on a sari she spreads onto the ground. She eats here, buying food from a street vendor when she can afford to.​

She is Lakhan's only caretaker. She tells us his father passed away four years ago. His mother deserted them. His older sister ran away. For a long time, it was just Sakubai and her grandson living, eating, sleeping and surviving together on the pavement.​

She may be in her 70s, but Sakubai still works to earn a meager living selling small toys and trinkets on Chowpatty, a popular beachfront in the heart of Mumbai.​

She says she had no choice but to tie him to a pole. "He is deaf so he would not be able to hear traffic coming. If he ran onto the road, he'd get killed," she says. "See, it's a long rope," Sakubai says, as she shows me the frayed cloth she would use to tie Lakhan's leg. I notice many of them, tied to different poles.​

Lakhan is not alone​

There are many children like Lakhan in Mumbai, says Meena Mutha, a social worker. Mutha's been involved with his case since the end of May. Lakhan was taken into care after a photographer published his photo in the local newspaper. A police constable saw it and asked Mutha to intervene.​

"When I saw him first, I did feel he needs help. He needs a home," Mutha recalls. Since his grandmother is already 70 years old, he could be without a caretaker in five or 10 years, she says. He needed somewhere secure to stay.​

Unable to find a shelter that looks after children with special needs, Mutha took him to a government-run juvenile center in Mumbai. Lakhan is there now but Mutha isn't happy because it's not a home for children with special needs.​

And that's the problem, Mutha says. There's a serious shortage of residential facilities for children with disabilities in Mumbai.​

The superintendent of the facility, S. A. Jadhav says Lakhan is being well looked after but he too is trying to find him a more suitable home. According to Jadhav, there is only one shelter for children with special needs in Mumbai and he can't get Lakhan a spot there because that too is severely overcrowded.​

CNN attempted several times to contact the minister responsible for women and children's affairs in Mumbai, Varsha Gaikwad, but received no response. Her office is a short walk away from bus stop 59 where Lakhan was found.​

Poverty and disability are dangerous combinations, says Dr. Shabnam Rangwala, who works with Able Disable People Together (ADAPT), a nonprofit organization whose mission is to create an inclusive disability-friendly India.​

Those who can afford to give their children or family members the care they need, do so. Those who can't, end up like Lakhan; on the streets, with no recourse to social services, invisible to the public.​

READ: Disability in India​