NOIDA: “Come back home, we will let you
study
,” the father of 20-year-old Imrana told her at the
police
station. The
family
of her cousin Rukhsar echoed him. And a few hours later, the two
sisters
, who had fled homes on June 18 to continue with their studies, agreed to accompany their parents back.
It took around five hours for the families of the two cousins to persuade them that they would be allowed to study for as long as they wanted. Imrana and Rukhsar had since been working in food outlets in Ghaziabad and staying in a room for a monthly rent of Rs 3,000. On Sunday evening, they were traced by the cops and brought to the Sector 24 police station.
When her parents arrived around noon on Tuesday, Imrana refused to leave the police station and started crying. “I don’t want to go back. They will force me to stop studying and won’t let me work too,” she told TOI.
As her mother Zarina and maternal uncle tried to convince her, Imrana demanded that they at least wait for Rukhsar, who had gone to a
Surajpur
court with her documents to prove she was not a minor. Rukhsar’s parents had a lodged a kidnapping complaint, claiming that their daughter was a minor.
“The policemen are saying they cannot keep us here for long and we will have to return. But we don’t want to go back home. I want to return to our rented room and continue working in Ghaziabad. They will not let me work,” Imrana sobbed.
Imrana’s father Saleem and Rukhsar’s father Shamshad promised to let their daughters study. Both families waited till 7pm for Rukhsar to return from court and headed home.