The girl had enrolled in a nursing course in Bihar, the police said (Representational)
A girl who went "missing" from her maternal uncle's Delhi home nearly four years ago has been found by the Delhi Police who said that she had fled to escape being married off as a minor and is now pursuing a nursing course.
Officials today said she had left the house in May 2017, when she was nearly 16 years old, and the matter was reported at the Shalimar Bagh police station in northwest Delhi where a kidnapping case was registered and an investigation initiated.
The police had in 2019 also announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for anybody providing information that helped locate her, they said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) (DCP) Bhisham Singh said, "Our (Crime Branch) team contacted and examined the relatives, friends and acquaintances of the girl. After analysing Call Detail Records, we found that the girl was somewhere in Bihar."
Head Constable Ramdas received an input Monday that the girl was coming to Delhi by a bus and that she would reach Anand Vihar Inter-state Bus Terminal (ISBT) in the morning, he said.
Acting on this tip-off, a team, sent to the ISBT, found the girl, he said.
He said the girl told the police her parents had passed away when she was a child and she and her brother used to live with their maternal uncle in Delhi.
"When she was in Class 10, her maternal uncle was forcing her to marry a person of his choice, but she did not want to get married as she was interested in studying further. So she left her uncle's house in 2017 without telling anyone and reached her maternal grandmother's house in Bihar's Samastipur district," he said.
None of her relatives visited her in Bihar and her maternal grandmother too did not inform anyone about her being there and supported her in pursuing her studies, the DCP said.
She completed her school education and enrolled herself in a nursing course in Samastipur, the DCP said.
The girl was not aware that an FIR had been lodged, he said, adding the Crime Branch handed her to the Shalimar Bagh Police Station, where the cases was registered.
The police then presented her before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and said further action will be taken in the matter on the direction of CWC.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)