Tripura: Missing minor girl rescued from Nepal after 20 days, accused detained

Sabroom: A 17-year-old girl from Sabroom in South Tripura district, who had been missing for nearly three weeks, was rescued from Nepal and reunited with her family on Sunday following a coordinated police operation involving Tripura and Assam Police.

Police sources said the girl, a resident of Sadasing Para under the Vaishnavpur area in Sabroom subdivision, had gone missing on October 19.

Her father subsequently lodged a written complaint at the Sabroom Police Station, prompting the authorities to launch an intensive search operation.

During the investigation, police traced the movements of the girl and a suspect identified as Krishna Thakur, a resident of Himachal Pradesh, with whom she had allegedly befriended through social media.

“The accused lured the minor under the pretext of marriage. They eloped from Tripura on October 19. She boarded a train from here, and the accused came here to pick her up. Our technical surveillance later confirmed their presence in the Dong area of Nepal. Further investigation revealed that Krishna Thakur’s stepmother lives in Nepal. To evade police action, he dropped her there,” a police officer said.

The police later traced the accused person’s movement in Assam under the Kokrajhar district.

“We have noticed that the accused keeps moving from one part of the country to another. As the investigation proceeded further, we came to know that he is associated with some kind of transport business, which requires a lot of traveling. When his location details were verified with the Gosaigaon police, a joint operation was conducted, and he was detained. The process of obtaining a transit remand is still underway,” Superintendent of Police South Tripura Mourya Krishna C told reporters.

In the meantime, police established contact with the minor girl who had been living with the stepfamily of her alleged lover. The police and her family members convinced her to return.

The stepbrother of the accused dropped her off in Uttar Pradesh, from where she was brought back to Agartala.

They entered Nepal using the same route through Bengal, Bihar, and UP, a police official privy to the investigation process added.

Expressing relief, the victim’s father said, “My daughter used to live in a rented house at Dipankar Chakraborty’s residence in Sabroom. When she went missing, we immediately sought police help. After 20 days of distress, she was finally rescued from Nepal.”