SAHIWAL: Pakpattan district police late on Friday recovered from Kot Lakhpat, Lahore, two girls who went missing from the Government Girls High School, Pakpattan, on Thursday afternoon.

Police claimed friends Sana, 14, and Zakira, 13 had run away for a boy one of them became friend with as they both belonged to the same area.

Zakira had befriended Nadeem, 21, a year ago and would talk on phone while he worked at a factory in Lahore.

She told her friend of the friendship and that she wanted to marry him. She decided to run away from home and convinced her friend to accompany her.

The girls disappeared from school on Thursday and travelled to Lahore on public transport.

After failing to find them at school, their parents reported the matter to the City police station.

District Police Officer Shah Nawaz Sandhila formed a team headed by City Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Humayun Iftikhar, DSP (Investigation) Shahida Naureen and Station House Officer Abid Husain to locate the girls.

Police used Global Positioning System to track mobile phones of the girls and traced them in Lahore.

On Friday night, a police team raided a factory in Kot Lakhpat, Lahore, and recovered both the girls.

The girls told police they had run away from home on their own will allegedly due to extreme poverty.

On Saturday, police presented the girls in the court of local civil magistrate and later handed them over to their parents.

Nadeem was also in police custody and no case was registered against him till the filing of this report.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2016