Seventeen juveniles escaped from “Safe Residential Centre”- Hefajotider Nirapad Abasan Kendra -in Gazipur’s Mogorkhal area on Friday night.
Twelve of them have been found while five are still missing. They fled the facility from the second-floor window around 12pm.
Department of Woman Affairs Additional Director Shahnawaz Dilruba Khan said: “Among the girls that live here, there is a victim of rape by her father, one with speech and hearing impairment, some with intellectual disability, some left behind by their parents at infancy, some are lost girls who were brought here and some fled from their home to marry at an early age. They do not know any better. Three among them led the escape.”
The centre’s authorities rescued four girls from the neighbourhood shortly after the incident. Police later found eight more from the Mirzapur railway station in Tangail on Saturday.
“Authorities today managed to bring 12 of them back to the safe house,” said Shahnawaz.
Search is still on to locate five others who fled from the Department of Women Affairs-run safe home.
A three-member probe committee led by Additional Deputy Commissioner Didar Mohammad Maksudul Chowdhury was formed to investigate the matter.
The committee has been asked to submit its report within seven working days.
State Minister for Women and Children Affairs, Meher Afroz Chumki, visited the safe house on Saturday on hearing about the incident.
