Pune railway ticket checkers reunite two runaway teenagers with their family in Kalyan

Two ticket checkers of Pune railway division found two minor youngsters roaming at the Pune railway station and handed them over to their parents hailing from Kalyan

Two ticket checkers of Pune railway division found two minor youngsters roaming at the Pune railway station and handed them over to their parents hailing from Kalyan.

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The officials asked the minors about their whereabouts as they were seen walking on the station premises on Wednesday early morning in suspicious manner. The teenagers said that they have run away from their home.

“Their parents were alerted and the boys were handed over to ‘Sathi’, an NGO that works towards finding runway kids. The senior ticket checker Suresh Mishra and Sushil Jha helped the teenagers get back to their family and fall in the trap of anti-social elements,” said Manoj Jhawar, Pune railway division spokesperson.

As per the information given by the railways, ticket checkers also observe public movement on the railway station premises.

During the night duty at Pune station, Mishra and Jha found the two teenagers at around 3 am without ticket.

“Since the Covid outbreak, teenage boys run away from their homes and come to cities like Pune and Mumbai in search of work. They come without informing their parents. Pune Railway Protection Force (RPF) has already formed ‘Savitribai Phule squad’ to identify such children and reunite them with their families. Till now, 235 runaway children were found by the squad in last ten months,” Jhawar said.

According to the railway official, the runway kids hail from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Orissa, Goa, Karnataka, Telangana, Rajasthan and even Nepal. While the highest number of children coming from outside state to Pune is from Bihar which is 61.