Bengaluru teen left for college and vanished. Months later, OTP led police to her

In January this year, an 18-year-old girl walked out of her Bengaluru home, telling her family she was headed to college with a friend. It was the last time they saw her–until seven months later, when an OTP generated for a government welfare scheme led the police to a Karnataka village, where she was found.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) produced Tanishka, who went missing from Vidyaranyapura in Bengaluru on January 31, before the Karnataka High Court, which had earlier directed the CID to take over the probe after her parents filed a habeas corpus petition.

The police said she is now married and pregnant. A few days after going missing, they reportedly contacted their friends and told them they were at Male Mahadeshwara Hills. They said they would call again in a week. But there was no further communication.

A missing person case was registered at Vidyaranyapura police station, and a 10-member team searched for the girls at more than 100 locations, including Mumbai, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Varanasi, Kerala, Chamarajanagar and Mysuru, but could not trace them.

After the investigation failed to yield a breakthrough, the girls’ parents approached the high court with a habeas corpus petition. The court transferred the investigation to the CID in April, following which the agency continued the probe.

According to the police, Tanishka said she felt neglected by her family. She alleged that her parents often scolded her for not doing well academically and favoured her elder sister, who was academically good. The minor, the police said, was the only child of parents who allegedly wanted a son, and she too felt neglected at home.

“We established that the girls first travelled to a temple in Mysuru, followed by another temple in Chamarajanagar the next day, before proceeding to Male Mahadeshwara Hills. Their intention was to end their lives. However, they met two young men there who spoke to them and dissuaded them from taking the extreme step,” a senior CID police official said.

The girls subsequently parted ways, each going with one of the men. Tanishka went on to live with the man she met, the police said. After his family accepted the relationship, the couple married at a temple and settled in his village in Kanakapura taluk.

With neither girl carrying a phone or SIM card, tracing them proved difficult for months. Tanishka’s Aadhaar card was the only document she had, and the police sought her Aadhaar information through the high court as part of the investigation.

The breakthrough came on Tuesday. Investigators found Tanishka had recently used her Aadhaar details to enrol for a government health scheme that offers financial benefits, and had entered her husband's phone number to receive the OTP for that application.

The police traced the number to him, took him into custody, and questioned him, leading them to Tanishka. “We had been investigating the case from different angles. Since the girls had not taken their phones, tracing them was difficult.

We later got a lead through her Aadhaar details, which had been updated when she accessed a government scheme. Based on this information, we were able to trace her,” a senior CID official involved in the investigation said.

Tanishka has now been handed over to her parents after being produced before the high court. Investigators are continuing to search for the other girl, who remains missing.