Bhubaneswar, May 4: The Child Welfare Committee, Khurda, today directed Ruchika Help Line, a government-supported shelter home, to furnish a written expla-nation within two days after 12 minors fled from the home on the night of May 1.

While police rescued one of the minors from the Bhubaneswar railway station, they are yet to trace the other 11. The inmates of the home had escaped by breaking open the skylight.

The Child Welfare Committee has also asked the authorities of the shelter home to install closed circuit television cameras on the premises to prevent a recurrence of such incidents in the future.

"We have asked the authorities of the shelter home to give a written reply explaining the circumstances that led to the incident. Most of the minors who have escaped were involved in petty crimes, such as theft. These minors have a tendency to flee and they somehow managed to break two skylights open and escaped," said Child Welfare Committee member Benudhar Senapati.

Yesterday, the shelter home authorities had lodged a formal complaint in this regard with Lingaraj police station.

The Child Welfare Committee suspects that a 16-year-old Bangladeshi national, who had escaped from a shelter home in Jatni in March through the skylight, to be the brains behind the incident.

"The minor had been staying at the shelter home for the past two weeks and was among the 12 minors who have fled," said a Child Welfare Committee member.

The police said around 30 minors lived in two rooms on the first floor of the shelter home. "The minors broke open the skylights in the toilets and climbed down the plastic pipes. The authorities of the shelter home came to know about the incident in the early hours of Tuesday. Some of the other inmates also told us about them having hatched a plan to escape from the home," said a police official.

The Child Welfare Committee is also counselling the minor who was rescued.

"He told us that the other inmates might have escaped to Jharsuguda, where one of the escapees hailed from. We have sent their photographs to our counterparts in Jharsuguda to help them track down the other inmates," said Senapati.