Google Maps and Facebook might have been just those applications helping us make friends and locate places, but the technology helped the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) here much more than that when they handed over a 12-year-old girl to her parents from a Maharashtra village. The girl, the daughter of a tailor, was rescued by the Juvenile Aid Police Unit last Sunday when she was found wandering at the Central railway station and was handed over to the CWC.
When they questioned the girl, who had studied only up to Class III, all that she could say was ‘Pandharpur’. Guessing it could be the name of her village, the CWC team used Google Maps and found that it was a village in Solapur district of Maharashtra after the girl helped by telling them the name of a cinema hall and a Hanuman temple located near her house. “She initially said she’s from Bihar. Later, when we asked her to tell us a ‘big place’ near her area, she said Meerut. But we could not locate her village. Finally, we found that a train from Meerut stops at Pandharpur station,” said Agnes Shanthi, Chairperson, CWC, Chennai.
Meanwhile, a message to a person, who became a friend on Facebook with Shanthi, helped them contact the Pandharpur police station. Checking with the station, they found that the girl and a boy, her neighbour, had gone missing from there. “When we asked the girl, she said she and her neighbour friend left home because they were beaten up by their parents for doing some mischief. Both had gone to the railway station, but after she got into a train, she found him missing,” Shanthi said.