In the third such instance in three months, nine residents of a Maharashtra government-run women’s shelter home in Mumbai’s eastern suburb Chembur fled from the home on Monday morning.

Sources said they had been permitted by a court to return to their own homes but were languishing in the shelter for weeks because of a shortage of officials to accompany them to their residences.

Most residents of the Navjivan Mahila Vastigruha are victims of human trafficking who have been rescued by the police.

Additional commissioner of police (east) Quaiser Khalid said, “The nine women broke the bathroom grille of the shelter home and then leapt off the compound wall to the other side.”

Security officials then alerted local police and a patrol van caught up with one woman who fell while trying to escape.