KOZHIKODE: All six teenagers who ran away from the Children’s Home for Girls at Vellimadukunnu on January 26 have been picked up by the Kozhikode police from Karnataka and Malappuram. The girls, all aged between 14 and 16, had ran away from the institution after the Republic Day celebrations and had been planning to go to Goa.
While one of the girls was detained from Madiwala in Karnataka on Thursday, one was picked up from Mandya in Karnataka in the early hours of Friday while she was on her way back to Kozhikode. The other four girls, who were planning to go to Kanyakumari via Palakkad, were picked up from Edakkara in Malappuram on Friday.
Sources said the girls chose Goa as one of the girls had an affair with a boy there. However, money for meeting travel expenses was an issue. “At the time of their escape, the girls had only Rs 48 in cash. They went to the KSRTC bus stand on Mavoor Road, borrowing Rs 20 from a person on the way,” said Medical College ACP K Sudersan.
“At the stand, they met some West Bengal natives and used one of their mobile phones to call the boy in Goa. They asked him to send Rs 500 through Google Pay to West Bengal native. They then collected Rs 500 cash from the West Bengal natives and boarded the KSRTC bus to Palakkad They required Rs 750 for tickets to Palakkad. They called the boy again from the bus conductor’s phone and asked him to send Rs 2,000 to the conductor’s account. The conductor didn’t say anything and returned the balance amount to the girls,” Sudersan said.
He said from Palakkad, the girls boarded a train to Bengaluru, but were caught travelling without tickets and asked to deboard when the train reached Coimbatore around 12.30am on Thursday. They waited at the railway station and boarded the next train to Bengaluru at 1:30am, again without tickets. They got down at Whitefield in Bengaluru. There, they met two Malayali boys, one a native of Kollam and the other of Thrissur, said Sudersan.
“They convinced the boys that their bags and purses were stolen during the train journey. They told the boys that they were travelling to Goa and needed a place to rest and freshen up. The boys took them to a hotel in Madiwala,” said Sudersan.
In the meantime, police traced the boyfriend’s number and learnt that the girls were in Madiwala. “When the girls tried to book a room, the hotel staff grew suspicious and informed the police. One of the girls was arrested on Thursday evening and handed over to the police,” he said.