Five minor girls who fled home to pursue education reunited with family

Five minor girls from impoverished families in Taloja, Mumbai, who ran away to Delhi in pursuit of education and to escape poverty, were traced and reunited with their families by the Anti Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of Navi Mumbai police.

Navi Mumbai: Five minor girls who hail from impoverished families in Taloja and decided to run away to Delhi in pursuit of education and escape poverty were traced and reunited with their families by the Anti Human Trafficking Unit (AHTU) of Navi Mumbai police on Monday.

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The girls aged between 16 and five, belonging to two families, lived in Taloja with their parents and relatives. Among them was the studious 14-year-old girl who had six siblings. While her father worked in a garage, her mother was a vegetable vendor and the girls often had to skip school in order to help their mother in selling the vegetables.

According to officials, the 14-year-old girl and her two sisters, aged seven and five, are good in academics and have dreams of excelling in life. Therefore, they loved attending school every day and were determined to complete their education. However, their family was not serious about their schooling, which bothered them a great deal and as a result, they decided to flee their homes to finish their studies away from the discouragement of families.

“By selling vegetables, the 14-year-old girl could save around ₹4,000 in a month which gave her the confidence to take her two siblings along with her to Delhi,” police inspector Prithviraj Ghorpade from AHTU said.

On February 3, when the 14-year-old girl and her siblings were about to leave the house, they met other girls from their neighbourhood, aged 16 and 14. In a quick chat, they revealed their plan to them. The other two sisters told them that they had no intention to study further, but they wanted to join them as their family was financially unstable and it was difficult for them to survive.

“The three siblings had left home on the pretext of going to school. When they did not return till evening, their mother began a search for them and she realised that a total of five girls were missing from the area and filed a kidnapping case with Taloja police,” Ghorpade added. The girls hired an auto rickshaw to Kharghar railway station and then travelled by a local train to Bandra Terminus where they boarded a Delhi-bound train. The three siblings had a distant cousin brother in Delhi whom they had contacted and they stayed with him.

During the course of the investigation, the police traced the tower location of the network used in a mobile carried by one of the girls. The police team called the relative, took him into confidence and obtained the exact address. A police team brought the girls back to Taloja and reunited with their families.