Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel tracked down four teenagers — victims as per POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act — who had run away from a rehabilitation centre near Kannur in Kerala with a woman security guard. The RPF personnel, attached to Udupi Railway Station of the Konkan Railway Corporation, found the girls in Udupi. They were handed over to Kannur police.
The RPF personnel received a message from KRCL headquarters in Belapur on September 5 morning that four girls from the Rehabilitation Centre for POSCO victims at Shivapura, near Kannur, had run away from the centre on September 4.
The girls — aged 16, 17, 18 and 19 — were accompanied by a 25 year-old woman who was part of the security personnel at the rehabilitation centre.
The group had boarded Train No. 16334 — Thiruvananthapuram Central-Veraval Weekly Express — at Kannur, and were travelling in the last general coach. Mattanur police in Kannur had registered a case under the Kerala Police Act.
RPF learnt from autorickshaw drivers at Udupi Railway Station that the four teenagers and the woman accompanying them had visited the Sri Krishna mutt in Udupi. | Photo Credit: Anil Kumar Sastry
Udupi RPF personnel, who checked CCTV camera footage, noticed that the girls and the woman had alighted from the train at 5.50 a.m. They had headed to the autorickshaw stand. Autorickshaw drivers told the RPF that the group went to Sri Krishna mutt. The group returned to Udupi Railway Station at 1 p.m. They were questioned by RPF Assistant Sub-Inspector Sudhir Shetty and women police personnel.
The girls claimed to have some issue about using mobile phones and fled the centre with the help of the woman security guard. One of them intentionally left behind her mobile phone in the train to mislead people trying to trace them, and bought a new one in Udupi with a new SIM.
The woman security guard had paid for the train tickets and the new mobile phone.
They were planning to go to Mumbai in search of jobs, the group of five told the RPF.
Mattanur Sub-Inspector U.K. Jithin arrived at Udupi Railway Station with women police personnel. They took custody of the five women and returned to Kannur on September 5 evening.
