3 missing minor girls reunited with family

Unavailability of environment congenial for studies due to an alcoholic father was a major factor behind the incident in which three minor girls had left home in the local Ahluwalia Colony on Sunday to search for some place suitable for their studies.

The inference was drawn after an informal interactive session of cops supervised by Senior Superintendent of Police, Khanna, Dr Jyoti Yadav, with the girls before handing them over to their parents on Friday.

The minor girls aged 8, 11 and 13 years, were brought here from Ashiana Building (NGO), Chandigarh, where they were kept under the supervision of senior functionaries of the Child Welfare Commission after being recovered on Thursday evening.

“Having recovered the girls from a deserted place, officials at Ashiana Building in Sector 15, Chandigarh, called us as they had learnt about the mysterious disappearance of the three girls from our area on Sunday. We brought the girls from Chandigarh today and handed them over to their parents after conducting the necessary counselling,” said DSP Amritpal Singh Bhatti, maintaining that further action in connection with the FIR registered against unknown persons would be resumed in due course of time.

DSP Bhatti said preliminary investigations had revealed that the atmosphere at the homes of the girls was not congenial as their father was addicted to alcohol.

Unaware of the risks involved in leaving home without any protection, the girls left in search of a place where they could pursue their studies, said Bhatti.

Though the girls had left their locality at 11 am on Sunday, nobody, including close relatives, came forward to provide any clue.

Surprisingly, the minor girls reached the state capital without drawing the attention of passengers and bus staff they travelled with.

The Khanna police on Monday had received a complaint about the disappearance of three minor girls (aged 8, 11 and 13), including two sisters from their homes a day earlier on Sunday, in the absence of their parents.

SSP Dr Jyoti Yadav had constituted special teams of cops from City Police, CIA, Special Branch and Technical Wing and deployed them to trace the missing girls.

The police had deployed sniffer dogs and drones to rule out the presence of girls at odd places, including rooftops and fields.