8-year-old Riang girl missing from RSTC Udharbond found in Sonai

In an incident that shocked many, yesterday, an eight year old girl hailing from the Riang community went missing from Residential Special Training Centre in Undharbond. The girl missing from the training centre which provides facilities to underprivileged and orphans was identified as Chameli Riang.

Today at around 10:30 AM, a man saw a lonely kid loitering around and when he asked her about her parents she did not reply. That is when the man informed Sonai Police Station and officials reached the spot and took the kid along.

While speaking to Barak Bulletin, warden of RSTC, Sajida Barbhuiya confirmed that the girl found in Sonai is Chameli Riang and they are on their way to bring her back from the Sonai Police station. According to her, Chameli ran away from the hostel before dawn yesterday. “This young girl used to tell her friends that she is not liking here and hence she would run away. But this was not informed to the administration.”

As per available information, Chameli Riang had joined the training centre very recently and can hardly speak or understand Bengali. It is worth mentioning here that Pinak Roy from Rising Youth Society NGO played a big role in circulating the news. He posted an image of Chameli Riyang on his Facebook wall, reached out to numerous Facebook pages and requested the admins to post about the underprivileged missing kid.

While Roy’s awareness is matter of pride, an  eight year old going missing from the girls training centre is a worrying sign. How can a kid get out of the facility unnoticed? Was the administration and especially the security sleeping in the pre-dawn hours? It is great that the girl has been found but this incident exposes many loopholes in the facility.