Missing Surat boys found at Katni station in MP

Surat: Three boys aged 15, 14 and 11 years went missing from a residential society in the Godadara police station area on Tuesday night, prompting an intensive search by police.During the probe, investigators found that the minors had left home late in the night and boarded a train from Surat railway station around midnight. As all three were minors, police accorded priority to the case. The boys were last seen playing in the society around 9pm. Police said they later reached Neelgiri Circle and took an autorickshaw to the railway station, arriving around 11.30pm. They boarded the Kutch Express and subsequently changed trains as they were trying to reach Uttar Pradesh. Teams from Surat police's Zone 2 local crime branch and Godadara police alerted railway police and authorities across stations and circulated the boys' photographs. Deputy commissioner of police (Zone 2) Kanan Desai told TOI: "Based on wide publicity of the children going missing via proper channels, we could successfully trace the children to MP's Katni Murwara railway station on Thursday evening. Railway police have taken them off the train. They are currently housed at a correctional home as their parents have left to receive them. We are investigating what might have led them to leave home." Police traced the boys to Katni Murwara railway station in MP on Thursday evening, where they were rescued by railway police. According to sources, the eldest boy had carried a bag, while the other two had taken an extra pair of clothes each. "Police there told us that the boys first said they were heading to meet the eldest boy's maternal grandmother in Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh. They later told investigators that being pressured to study led them to try to go to Etawah," Desai told TOI.