Missing Kozhikode girl traced in Bengaluru with relative booked in POCSO case

Kozhikode: The 13-year-old girl who went missing from Kozhikode’s Thamarassery was traced in Bengaluru along with her cousin brother (26), who is an accused in a POCSO case, said police here on Tuesday. The POCSO case was registered against him based on a complaint filed by the girl's family five months ago. According to the officials, the duo is in the custody of Karnataka police.

The girl reportedly went missing from her residence at Puthuppadi in Thamarassery on March 11. In the complaint to police, the girl’s parents alleged that she went missing after leaving for her annual examination at school around 9 am on March 11. Further investigation revealed that the Class 8 girl was accompanied by her 26-year-old cousin, who was earlier booked for sexually abusing her.

The Thamarassery DYSP confirmed that the police tracked the girl and her relative to Bengaluru and that the Karnataka police took them into custody upon their instructions. 

'We had traced them in Bengaluru on Monday evening. Later, we informed the Karnataka police and they detained them. Further actions are being initiated to bring them back to Kozhikode,” DYSP K Sudhir told Onmanorama.

According to an official at Thamarassery police station, the investigation team has already left for Bengaluru. 

The police traced the teen girl in Bengaluru after a week-long intense search. On March 14, police obtained crucial information that the girl had reached a lodge in Thrissur. In the CCTV visuals shared by a lodge owner in Thrissur, the girl was seen along with her cousin brother. However, the duo left the place before police reached the spot, as the lodge owner had denied them a room because they did not carry any ID proof.

Amid the search for the girl, her family has come up with allegations against her cousin. They alleged that the man, who is the son of the girl’s paternal aunt, abducted the girl to wreak vengeance against the family for not withdrawing a POCSO case against him. As per the case registered nearly five months back, the girl who was on her way to school was allegedly taken to a lodge and sexually abused by this youth.

He had spent 70 days in jail after a local court remanded him in the case. Though his family approached the girl's parents to withdraw the case, they rejected their request.