Ghaziabad: Three girls escape from government school residence

Ghaziabad: Three girls from a public school in Ghaziabad escaped from their hostel under mysterious circumstances early Tuesday morning, senior police officials said, adding that efforts were on to trace them.

The incident took place at Kasturba Gandhi Awasiya Balika Vidyalaya, a free government school for girls that teaches students from classes 6 to 8. The missing girls are students of classes 7 and 8, two of them live in Ghaziabad and the third in Delhi, they said.

“The girls went missing around 5 am on Tuesday and are suspected to have escaped from a secured area in Nehru Nagar. CCTV footage showed that they were on the school verandah and later went missing. We have received a missing complaint from the school in this regard and our teams are trying to trace them. Their families have also been contacted and information from other girl students is also being gathered for clues,” said Rajesh Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (DCP) (city).

The school falls under the jurisdiction of the education department, whose officials said appropriate action would be taken following an investigation.

“Those who fail to do their duty will be punished. The incident came to light when the school staff went to wake up the students for their morning yoga classes. Three students were not there. They had slept in their dormitories along with other students on Monday night and were found missing in the morning,” said OP Yadav, primary education officer.

Police teams are checking various surveillance footage from outside the school building and are trying to determine the route the three girls took.

“We are gathering more information about them and our teams are working to locate them as soon as possible,” the DCP added.

The incident occurred within the jurisdiction of the Sihani Gate Police Station.