In what feels like a movie script, two teenage girls in Pakistan ran away from home to meet the K-pop musical sensation BTS.
The two girls, aged 13 and 14, who were reported missing from Korangi in Karachi city, were found in Lahore, the Pakistani police said on Tuesday (10 January), as per a Dawn report.
How did the police find the teenagers? What has the police revealed about the case? Let’s understand.
Two teenage girls go ‘missing’
As per the police, the two girls, who are friends, disappeared last week following which their parents lodged a complaint at Karachi’s Zaman Town police station on 7 January under Section 364-A (kidnapping or abducting a person under the age of fourteen) of the Pakistan Penal Code, Pakistan daily Dawn reported.
The complainant, Mohammed Junaid, told the police that he was at home with his 13-year-old daughter when her friend arrived.
When he came back to the house later, he could not find the teenagers anywhere, as per Dawn.
The father said that his family told him the two girls went outside. Later, his daughter’s friend’s father also arrived looking for her.
The duo searched for hours but failed to locate the girls, the Pakistan daily reported.
Junaid said he suspected foul play and believed the girls were abducted by unknown people for some “ulterior motive”.
Pakistan Police find the girls
According to Korangi senior superintendent of police (SSP) Abraiz Ali Abbasi, a diary recovered during the search of the home of one of the girls revealed their plans to travel to South Korea to meet K-pop band BTS.
“From the diary we saw mentions of train timetables and that they had been planning to run away with another friend of theirs … who we then interviewed,” CNN quoted Abbasi as saying.
“A forensic examination of WhatsApp chat, their deleted browsing data, and handwritten diary confirms they had left homes for South Korea to join their favorite band,” the senior police official told Arab News.
The SSP said the police began an extensive search for the girls who were traced to Lahore.
“We started tracking them aggressively and found out they were in custody of the police in the city of Lahore where they had traveled by train,” he said, as per CNN.
Abbasi also said that the duo wanted to take their relative Naufil along with them, who refused to join, Dawn reported.
The SSP claimed that the girls’ had carried out research online on what to do in South Korea and also prepared a written plan about reaching Islamabad via train, Arab News reported.
“Interestingly, they had googled [things like] ‘what to avoid in South Korea’ and ‘what type of clothes would they need to wear’ there,” Abbasi stated.
The Pakistan Police say the two teenagers left their homes and wanted to join BTS. AP File Photo
The arrangements have been made in coordination with the Lahore Police to bring back the adolescents to Karachi, the SSP informed.
In a video statement, he also urged parents to “monitor their children’s screen time,” so they are aware of what their kids are watching on the internet, CNN reported.
What has Railways police said?
The girls were found in a “miserable condition” by one of the patrolling constables on Monday afternoon, as per the Pakistan Railways Police.
“The girls were hiding themselves to be unnoticed or overlooked. They were disguised and garbed in a way [so as to look like boys], according to the constable who found them,” a spokesperson for the Railways Police said, as per Arab News.
During the initial probe, the girls’ complained of their parents’ “indifferent attitude”, the spokesperson, Kanwar Umair Sajid, added. “They complained of the indifferent attitude of the parents and said they wanted to make a life on their own”.
“It isn’t a surprise that two teenagers took this risk because ‘stans’ are capable of doing this for their idols,” culture journalist Rabia Mehmood told CNN.
“But if we had more safe organized fan-girling spaces, younger fans could engage openly and freely with each other about their favorites instead of taking such risks,” the journalist remarked.
Brief on BTS
BTS, which debuted in 2013, has become one of the world’s most famous bands with its fans – known as ARMY – spread across countries, including Pakistan.
ALSO READ: BTS to fulfil military duties: South Korea and other countries where conscription is compulsory
The South Korean group has seven members including J-Hope, Jimin, Jin, Jungkook, RM, Suga, and V.
The K-pop band, which boasts of over 70 million followers on Instagram, has also boosted South Korea’s tourism and overall interest in the country. “BTS’s popularity is fueling tourism to Korea, study of the Korean language, interest in Korean movies, television, fashion and food,” NPR‘s Stacey Vanek Smith said in 2021.
Currently, the group is on a hiatus as its oldest member, Jin, started mandatory military service last month.
BTS has taken a hiatus as its members will serve in the military. AP
The group will stay apart till at least 2025 as the other members complete their military service.
With inputs from agencies
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