Two days after they went missing, two Bengaluru boys were found in Katpadi railway station in Tamil Nadu. Railway officials informed the boys’ relieved parents, who are on their way to pick up the children.
Kumar and Srikanth, Class 9 and Class 6 students of two different schools in Bengaluru, were outside their house on Monday evening. Neighbours recalled seeing them playing but the pair went missing at around 4 pm.
Srikanth’s mother, Padma, who was at work when they went missing, told The News Minute that her repeated efforts to file a missing complaint at the Rajagopal Nagar police station went in vain.
“I had lost hope that I will see my son,” Padma told The News Minute. At around 10pm on Tuesday night, she received a call from an official at the Katpadi railway station. “He said my son and his friend were found asking for help at the station. He said that they were badly hurt. The officer assured us that he will take care of the boys until we picked them up from the station," Padma said.
Padma took the first train to Katpadi at 2 am on Wednesday. Padma said that both Srikanth and Kumar are badly hurt and aren’t speaking much. According to the mother, the two boys had been kidnapped and then abandoned by kidnappers. But sources in the police department say that they had run away from home.
Throughout the ordeal, the Bengaluru police were of no help, Padma says. When The News Minute spoke to the Police Commissioner, NS Megharik, on Tuesday evening, he said that he would look into the case. However, Padma alleged that the police remained unhelpful and refused to take her complaint.
“When we went there (on Tuesday evening), officials just asked us to leave or ignored us. They only attended to people with money. If they had taken my complaint, all this would have been so much easier. This incident just shows how vulnerable children are in the area and that the police just don’t care,” she said.
Rajagopal Nagar is part of an area which saw some of the worst violence and arson in Bengaluru on Monday, forcing the police to impose curfew in areas around 16 police stations. Rajagopal Nagar was one of the police stations which was brought under curfew. Bengaluru Police lifted curfew on Wednesday morning, with effect from 9am.