The Railway Protection Force (RPF) intercepted two teenage girls at Kalyan station on Monday, less than 24 hours after their older sister tweeted to Railway Minister Piyush Goyal seeking help to trace her sisters who ran away from their Delhi home.
At 3.30 a.m. on Monday, Laxmi tweeted to Mr. Goyal the pictures and soft copies of the Aadhaar cards of her sisters Sadhana (17) and Puja Anuragi (15), who went missing from home on Sunday.
Mr. Goyal’s office alerted RPF officers, who got in touch with Laxmi. An RPF officer said, “After they left home, the girls called up Laxmi and told her that they had not been kidnapped and were heading for Mumbai to pursue their dreams. They told her that they were boarding a train from Jhansi to Lokmanya Tilak Terminus on Monday morning.”
Laxmi instantly searched online for all the trains leaving Jhansi for Mumbai and concluded that her sisters had boarded the Udyog Nagari Express. She then passed on the information to the RPF officers, who sent teams to board trains heading from Jhansi to Mumbai.
The girls were found in the general compartment of Udyog Nagari Express when it halted at Kalyan station at 10 p.m. on Monday. The team led the girls to the RPF station in Kalyan and informed Laxmi that her sisters had been found. Laxmi then passed on the information to her brother Udyog, who had left for Mumbai in the early hours of Monday. The RPF officers later sent Puja and Sadhana back to Delhi with Udyog.
An RPF officer said, “The girls had completed a beautician’s course and their cousin, who lived in Mumbai, promised to get them high-paying jobs in Bollywood. Both sisters were ambitious and decided to run away to Mumbai.”
The RPF officers said they would decide on taking legal action against the cousin after the Delhi police records the statements of the girls. On Tuesday, Laxmi, in a Facebook post, thanked the Ministry of Railways and the Prime Minister and requested them to honour the RPF officers for their efforts. She said, “The entire country and Maharashtra police mechanism came out in my support and reunited me with my sisters.”