Four schoolgirls who went missing from Thakurgaon's Baliadangi upazila have been rescued from Sylhet, police said on Thursday.

The girls were rescued from a bus counter in Sylhet at around 3pm on Wednesday while they were waiting to travel to Gowainghat, said Thakurgaon Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Snehashish Kumar Das.

They had left home for private tuition on Tuesday and had gone missing, their families said.

ASP Snehashish said police launched a search operation after receiving information on their disappearance on Tuesday afternoon.

During the investigation, police found that the girls first travelled to Dinajpur, then to Dhaka, before eventually reaching Sylhet.

Police said they suspected the girls may have fallen into the hands of a human trafficking syndicate which lured them with false promises and was attempting to take them to India through a border area in Sylhet.

After the girls did not return home on Tuesday, their families filed a general diary (GD) with Baliadangi Police Station.

Police also said further investigation was underway.