A 17-year-old resident of the Nirbhaya shelter home at Venjaramoodu, who went missing from the home around 5 p.m. on Wednesday, was traced to Cherthala in Alappuzha district late in the night and brought back to Venjaramoodu on Thursday.
The girl, who reached the Nirbhaya shelter home at Poojappura as a rape victim three months ago, was shifted to the Venjaramoodu home recently to enable her to take up a fashion designing course, P.E. Usha, State Project Director, Mahila Samakhya, under whose aegis the shelter home functions, said.
Even as a search was on, the girl contacted one of the staff at the home using a mobile phone. The call indicated that she was travelling on a train and the staff guessed that she could be going to her house at Cherthala, following which the police were alerted. Police teams were posted at all railway stations between Haripad and Ernakulam.
She was identified as soon as she alighted at the Cherthala station around 11.30 p.m. Ms. Usha and another Nirbhaya employee reached Cherthala around 3 a.m. and returned to Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday morning with the girl, who said she had gone to meet her family.
How she got the mobile phone was being verified, Ms. Usha said.
