E-Paper
Now, 6 minor girls escape from shelter home in Lucknow
At around 2.40 am, the girls broke the latch and reached the inner gate of the shelter home. Then, they lifted the channel (an iron gate) and escaped from the residential area. The girls climbed on empty drums (water containers) one by one with the help of the water supply pipe and reached the roof of the bathroom on the campus.
Six minor girls, including a pregnant one, escaped from the state-run shelter home here by crossing the 18 feet boundary wall, fenced with barbed wire, in just 30 minutes in the wee hours of Saturday when no guard was monitoring the CCTVs.
Earlier, too, there have been several cases of inmates escaping from the shelter home.
At around 2.40 am, the girls broke the latch and reached the inner gate of the shelter home. Then, they lifted the channel (an iron gate) and escaped from the residential area. The girls climbed on empty drums (water containers) one by one with the help of the water supply pipe and reached the roof of the bathroom on the campus.
From there they crossed the boundary wall fenced with barbed wires. The entire episode was recorded in the CCTVs. “Had there been someone monitoring the CCTVs, the girls could have been stopped from fleeing,” said a government official who did not want to be named.
These six girls were brought here in last one year. “All of them had eloped with men and their family members had filed abduction complaints against men,” said Aarti Singh, shelter some superintendent. One of the girls was pregnant, she added.
“The girls were feeling homesick. Their families had deserted them after they eloped with men of their choice,” Singh said and added that three of them are from Lakhimpur Kheri, two from Lucknow and one from Hardoi.
The shelter home currently housed 71 inmates, including three children, and 10 security personnel guard the home in shifts.
“Teams have been sent to search for them. It seems they have gone to their respective homes,” said an official, “We are still figuring out if someone helped them escape.”
District probation officer (DPO) Sudhakar S Pandey said, “I visited the shelter home at 7 am on Saturday. A report has been sent to the higher authorities.”
Lucknow district magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident. Besides this, the office of district probation will also conduct an inquiry.
In earlier cases of inmates fleeing from the shelter home, probe reports pointed out that no one had been monitoring the CCTVs when the escape took place. The probe panels’ recommendations to act against erring staff members were also not adhered to by the department of women and child development, under which the shelter home comes.
