15-year-old flees Nanded with his pal & Rs 6 lakh, both found in Malad

MUMBAI: The Cyber Crime Police tracked down a 15-year-old boy who had gone missing from his home in Nanded to Malad on Friday morning. The police had got information that the class 10 student had left home on Thursday with a 17-year-old friend and had taken along Rs 6 lakh from home. The younger boy had had a fight with his father for not buying him new clothes. The 17-year-old friend has also been found.
The teenagers reached Kurla railway terminus on Friday and reached Malad where they purchased an iPhone worth Rs 1 lakh that helped the police track their location. They used the SIM card of the 17-year-old boy in the newly purchased phone and used his social media account which helped the police.

A cyber police officer said that the boys were clueless about what they were going to do and only thought of going on a shopping spree in Mumbai as the 15-year-old had over Rs 6 lakh in his bag. “Luckily, they did not fall into wrong hands,” said the officer.
The iPhone and chats on the Instagram account posted by the minor’s friend using the new mobile helped the police to track the two around 8.30 pm. A case of kidnapping had been registered by Nanded rural police lodged by the 15-year-old boy’s father. “It was a sensitive matter as the father has filed a kidnapping case... The matter got viral on the WhatsApp group about the two boys missing around 7.30 pm on Friday and were traced in Malad by 8.30 pm by tracking their phone location,” said DCP (Mumbai-Cyber) Rashmi Karandikar.
The class 10th student left his home after locking his two younger siblings in their home on Thursday morning after their parents left for a marriage function of one of their relatives. “We learned about our elder son gone missing when we returned home in the evening and our two kids informed us that their brother locked them and left home. He carried some money from the house. While lodging a complaint, we learnt that my son’s friend, is missing from the village who had a mobile phone with him. My son did not have a phone... My son left home because I did not get him new clothes,” said the father of the 15-year-old.
Cyber police officials said that the boy took over Rs 6 lakh that his father had kept in the house.
Mumbai police chief Hemant Nagrale during the release of annual report 2021 said there are many cases in which parents of missing or kidnapped minors do not report to the local police stations once minors return.