Boys escape from a government-run home

TT, Jalpaiguri, May 5: Eight boys, aged between 12 and 16 years, fled from a government-run home here last night.

Police have caught six of them from two different locations but are yet to trace the remaining two boys, who hail from Bihar and Assam.

Sources said last night, the boarders who stayed at the first floor of the home used hammers and chisels to break a portion of the wall of their room and fled.

"As we spoke to the six boys who were found at Karala Valley tea estate, located on the outskirts of Jalpaiguri, and at Haldibari, around 25km from Jalpaiguri in Cooch Behar district, they said it took them a fortnight to make the hole," a police officer said.

"They hung bed sheets through the hole and climbed down to the ground one after another. They then ran on the campus and got onto the top of a water tank, grabbed the branches of a mango tree close to the fenced boundary wall. The boys climbed up the tree and jumped on the other side of the wall," he added.

The boys had planned to reach Siliguri and then head for their homes, the officer said.

Rachna Bhagat, the district magistrate of Jalpaiguri,and a CID team, along with other officials, reached Korak, the home located at Racecoursepara.

An administrative official has been asked to carry out an inquiry, the DM said.