PETALING JAYA: Datin Hasnah Abdul Rahman experienced a parent’s worst nightmare when her autistic son Ahmad Ziqri Morshidi went missing.

The ordeal began at 11am yesterday when Ahmad Ziqri asked his mother for a ride on the MRT, as he had seen a video of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak boarding the newly-opened rail system.

“You see, I think in his innocent mind, he thinks that if he were to take the MRT, he might meet the Prime Minister,” said Hasnah in a Facebook post.

But when they arrived at an MRT station, Ahmad Ziqri boarded one of the coaches by himself and was separated from his family.

Hasnah immediately took to social media to alert family and friends.

She also approached the MRT Operations Centre, where officers promptly scanned CCTV recordings and narrowed down his location.

Thanks to the fast response by MRT staff, security and auxiliary police, Ahmad Ziqri was found safe and sound about an hour later at the TTDI station.

According to Hasnah, Ahmad Ziqri has classic autism, which means he experiences hyper activity, attention deficit disorder, anxiety disorder, aggression and lately, increased occurrences of sensory overload.

The 57-year-old public relations consultant and gourmet home chef said that while her son is 20 years old physically, he is only 11 or 12 emotionally.

In the confusion, Hasnah was not sure whether those who helped her were staff from MRT Corp or RapidKL, but praised them for the services rendered to her and her son.

“They had good training in terms of what to do and they were very calm.

“The staff at the MRT control centre at the Kampung Selamat station were brilliant, and so were the auxiliary police and everyone else,” she said.

Hasnah also thanked those on social media who spread the word and offered to help locate her son.-thestar