A 24-year-old girl from Maniyar village in Ballia left her home on Tuesday to go to Surat - 1600 kilometers away - on a bicycle to marry the man she had met on social media. The traders who stopped her on suspicion alerted the local police, who contacted her parents. The girl confessed that she had left home to go to Surat to meet her lover, and said that she came in contact with a youth of Surat through a social media platform following a long spell of chatting. The surat boy expressed his inability in visiting Ballia mentioning his work engagements, and the girl on January 17 decided to leave for Surat on her bicycle with her bag containing bridal items apart from daily use articles. However, before she could reach Shankarpur market her mobile phone's battery was drained out. The local traders got suspicious over her desperation and alerted the police. Station Officer Bansdih Road Rajkapur Singh said that on being contacted her parents said that they were searching for her since morning.
