The Hindu : National : Mobile phones help track missing girls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 24, 2004

National

National

Mobile phones help track missing girls

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, OCT. 23. Two college girls belonging to a study group from Rajasthan, who went missing near the Chala market here on Thursday, were traced on the Rajdhani Express at Renigunta in Andhra Pradesh.

The police launched a massive hunt, with inter-State help, after the college authorities informed control room that the girls went missing at around 9 p.m. on Thursday. The girls had earlier been part of a 55-member all-girls group that dispersed for shopping at Chala a little after 6 p.m.

The 20-year-old girls, both second-year B.A. students of Modi College in Sikar district, had boarded the Rajdhani Express, which left here at 7.15 p.m. on Thursday, without informing anybody. The girls were handed over to their parents by the Railway Police at Bhopal Railway Station this morning.

The City Police Commissioner, Balram Kumar Upadhyay, told The Hindu that the girls' mobile phones had been traced. They had switched off their phones during the night but switched them on again on Friday morning, enabling the police to track them with the help of the AirTel staff.

The police had searched the city's lodges on Thursday night in vain.

On Friday morning, the phones were seen to be moving through Tamil Nadu, apparently on a train. The Railway Policewere alerted and based on the location and the timing, the train was identified as the Delhi-bound Rajdhani Express.

The Railway police searched the train at Renigunta station and located the girls, who were travelling without tickets,Mr. Upadhyay said.

They were provided an escort and their parents, on being alerted, met them at Bhopal station.

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