Girls flee home over no FB access

Monotosh Chakraborty | Oct 24, 2014, KOLKATA: Two cousin sisters studying in a south Kolkata school have disappeared from their homes reportedly on being denied access to facebook.

The girls, studying in Class VIII and IX, have written letters to their parents, expressing their unfulfilled aspirations. Both of them promised their parents that they would return home after tasting success.

Amrita Chakraborty and her cousin Puspita Chakraborty (names changed to protect identities), left their homes in Pratapgarh and Bonhooghly in Sonarpur almost at the same time on October 12 on the pretext of going to local shop.

When neither returned home after even an hour, the families got in touch with each other to check whether their girl had gone to other's home.

Early on Monday, October 13, they lodged a missing diary with Sonarpur police station.

"The letters of both girls have a common motive. Both of them were unhappy with the constant denial of their parents to let them access internet and social networking sites. Both confessed that their parents were loving, but they said that they would be failures in life if they continued to live in such homes. They want to come back after achieving success," said an investigator.

The letters are now in police custody.

The girls switched off their mobiles after they left home. After monitoring the mobiles, police got to know that the phones were used a couple of times in Chennai, where the family has relatives. When contacted, however, they told the Chakraborty family that the girls never came to their house. Incidentally, before they left home, both girls reportedly exchanged as many as 64 messages with one of their Chennai relatives.

The parents claimed that both girls were average in studies and had excessive interest in e-mails and Facebook. Their parents stopped them as their obsession with social networking affected their education.

This led to rebukes and scoldings. "We tried make them understand why Facebooking would ruin their careers," said a parent. "Their parents put a complete embargo on Facebooking till the board exams. That must have upset the girls immensely," said a family member.

Police interrogated the family members and seized a number of documents from their respective homes.

The CID missing persons squad wing was alerted about the case. Police hope for an early breakthrough and claimed to have stumbled upon some crucial clues at the homes of the girls.