Police are hunting for five of the 17 girl inmates who escaped from a juvenile detention centre in Gazipur early yesterday.

Authorities caught four of them before they managed to go far and eight others inTangail's Mirzapur upazila yesterday noon.

The girls appear to have cut open the grilles of a window in the rear side of the two-storey building of the safe home for women and chil-dren detainees, said Shahnowas Dilruba Khan, additional director of Directorate ofWomen Affairs.

She added that the girls seem to have taken weeks to cut the grilles with nothing but spoons.

Most of the girls at the home are underage, have fled home and married, or rape victims, she said, adding, they don't know what is good forthem. Authorities have found that once they got out, some of the girls made phone calls to accomplices who sent them money through mobile banking services.

Most of the escaped girls used the money to flee Mogorkhal area where the home is located.

Dilruba said a three-member committee headed by a magistrate was formed to look into how the girls escaped. The committee was asked to submit its report in seven days.

Meher Afroz Chumki, state minister for women and children affairs, visited the home yesterday.

Mirzapur police said six of the eight girls caught there have speech impairment.

Police also detained a 17-year-old boy who was with the girls at the time.

Locals detained them at Mirzapur Rail Station and handed them to police, Mizanul Haque, officer-in-charge of Mirzapur Police Station, said.

They boarded a train at Airport Rail Station in Dhaka in the morning. They were forced to get down at Mirzapur as they didn't have tickets, he added.

The girls told police that they were tired and bored of the life and unappetising food at the home.