Teen runs away from home as parents scold her for using phone

Two children in Thane ran away from home on Diwali after being scolded by their parents for using mobile phones. This is the fifth such case in the past six months.

THANE: Two children, on the day of Diwali, ran away from home in Thane after their parents scolded them for using mobile phones.

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In the first instance, a 15-year-old girl was staying with her parents and a younger sister in Kalwa for the past few years. She failed Class 10 and was planning to appear once again for the same.

According to the parents who made the complaint, she was not interested in studies, still, her parents were encouraging her and recently gave her a mobile phone so she could study well.

However, her parents noticed that she was addicted to social media and scolded her on several occasions for the same issue.

“On Friday, she was scolded again by her father, who asked her to clean the dishes and snatched the phone from her. The father then went inside the room. He came back to the kitchen and couldn’t find her. He searched for her all over the place but still, she couldn’t find her in any of her friends or family members’ houses. He then came to the police station to file the missing case,” Kalwa police officials said.

This marks the fifth such case in the past six months where children have left their house over this issue, officers added. “They have become addicted to mobile phones and parents are scolding them to get out of this addiction. In the name of doing studies, the children are getting involved on the phone. In this case, the girl’s pic has been circulated all over the place and the search for her is still going on.”

On the same day in Kalyan, a 16-year-old girl went missing from home over the same issue. In her case, the girl was asked to do Diwali work and she refused to do it as she wanted to play games on the phone.