A Class 8 boy in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district staged his own kidnapping and kept the local police on their toes for over 10 hours.
The boy ‘kidnapped himself’ because he did not wish to go back to school.
However, inconsistencies in the statement of the boy’s younger brother who is a student of Class 7 in the same school, blew the lid off the plan.
Police found the boy in neighbouring Ayodhya district.
Barabanki Superintendent of Police Dinesh Singh said they received a call from the parents of the minor children on Monday afternoon.
According to the police, the two brothers had gone to school after the end of the summer break. Later, the younger brother returned home to inform the parents that the elder one had been “kidnapped by some miscreants in a car from outside the school”.
“We formed ten teams and got cracking on the case. A team led by the city police circle officer visited the spot, checked the CCTV footage and took statements from the vendors and shopkeepers,” the SP said.
Surprisingly, no such incident around the school was corroborated from these sources, police said.
Besides, police found inconsistencies in the statement of the younger brother who said he had gone to the washroom when the “kidnapping” happened. When asked how he got to know of the “kidnapping”, if he was not on the spot, the boy broke down and told the cops his brother had made plans to bunk the school.
Later, CCTV footage revealed that the boy had left the school along with one of his school friends and they were both spotted boarding a bus to Ayodhya.
“We spoke to other friends of the boy and it surfaced that the person accompanying him was also his friend,” said additional SP (North) Ashutosh Mishra.
Mishra said that the two were later found in Ayodhya on Tuesday.
The kids told cops that they first visited a temple in the holy city and later had lunch.
“Asked why he staged his own kidnapping, the boy told us that he enjoyed his summer break and wanted to skip school for a few more days,” the additional SP said.