3 children get lost at Christmas fair; cops trace them within 10 hours

The three children aged 10, 7 and 5 years had left their houses and were playing outside, said Malhar Thorat, assistant police inspector, Dahisar police station. Their parents searched for them and eventually reported them missing.

Mumbai: Three children from Dahisar (East), who went to a Christmas fair near a mall in Bhayandar (West) on Thursday evening, lost their way home. After spending the night near the mall in an empty stomach, the trio roamed around the area looking for food. Luckily, a police team spotted them on Friday and reunited them with their families within 10 hours of the incident being reported.

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The three children aged 10, 7 and 5 years had left their houses and were playing outside, said Malhar Thorat, assistant police inspector, Dahisar police station. Their parents searched for them and eventually reported them missing.

“The ten-year-old kid had taken the younger kids along,” said Thorat. “We formed five teams and with the help of locals through WhatsApp we spread the message about the children and also passed on their photos to other police stations and police officers so as to know about their whereabouts.”

After checking the recording of the CCTV cameras installed in the locality where the children resided, the police found that the children had gone towards the Dahisar station. On checking CCTV footage of the railway station, they found that the children had boarded a train going towards Virar.

The police had then sent teams to stations beyond Dahisar and began scanning the areas manually to locate the children. In the wee hours on Friday, Thorat said, they received a message from a local that he had seen the children roaming around near Maxis Mall in Bhayandar (West).

A team of officers reached the spot and found the children there.