Reported Missing Last Week, Two Youth Girls Found 750 Mil From Home: Wanting To Go To South Korea Meet BTS

Illustration of train in Pakistan. (Unsplash/Badar ul Islam Majid)

JAKARTA - Intending to meet the K-pop supergroup BTS, two teenagers made a scene after being reported missing last week, found hundreds of miles from where they lived when they were secured by the police.

Two teenage girls who were reported missing in Pakistan last week have been found more than 750 miles from their homes, after trying to travel to South Korea to meet BTS K-pop supergroups, police said in the South Asian country.

The two girls, who are known to be 13 and 14 years old, were reported missing on Saturday morning in Korangi, Karachi City, Pakistan, said Abraiz Ali Abbasi, a senior police inspector in the area.

The police who received the report moved quickly to carry out an investigation. During a search of their homes, the police found a daily book that revealed their plans to go to South Korea to meet with the BTS supergroup, Abbasi said in a video statement.

"From the textbook we saw the train schedule and that they were planning to go with their other friends... which we interviewed later," said Abassi, as reported by CNN on January 11.

"We started tracking them aggressively and found out they were being held by police in the city of Lahore, where they traveled by train."

Abbasi said his party had coordinated with police in Lahore to bring the girls back to Karachi.

He also appealed to parents to pay more attention to their children when they are active in cyberspace, to know more about what is accessed by their children online.

"It's no surprise that two teenagers are taking this risk because'stan' is capable of doing this for their idols," cultural journalist Rabia Mehmood said, using the term everyday for loyal fans.

"But if we have a safer organized fangirling room, younger fans can engage openly and freely with each other about their favorites, they instead take risks like that."

K-pop has many connoisseurs around the world, including Pakistan, with fans covering age and gender groups. Posters and albums of BTS are being sold across the country, while Korean dramas are also increasingly popular.