When the Matunga police found 12-year-old Amar Sankrit, from Delhi, they initially believed his story of being kidnapped by two men.

On further questioning and cross-questioning, Amar Sankrit, changed his statement.

He told the police that he ran away from his Delhi house as he did not want to appear for the school exam of Punjabi language. On Tuesday, Sankrit, a class 7 student of Guru Nanak Public School in Delhi, left his house for school.

“Amar left his house wearing his school uniform and carrying his school bag, with Rs 600,” said senior inspector Sunil Deshmukh of Matunga police station.

Amar, the youngest of five siblings, stayed at Ashok Nagar with his elder brother, Abhishek and his three cousins. His father had died a few years back and his mother stayed with his three sisters at Varanasi.

When the boy’s brothers could not find him, they lodged a case of kidnapping. “As soon as Amar called up his mother from a public telephone booth in Dadar, she informed her elder son Abhishek, who immediately alerted the Delhi police,” Deshmukh added.

The Delhi police informed the Mumbai police after which police teams from Matunga, Dadar and Shivaji Park started a search for Amar. Amar is in the custody of the state Child Welfare Committee.

A police team from Delhi would be coming to the city for taking his custody.

‘I planned to run away to aunt in Patna’

This is what 12-year-old Amar Sankrit, a resident of Ashok Nagar, west Delhi and a student of Guru Nanak Public School, had to say about his adventure:

“I am a Rajput and not afraid of anybody. I had already planned to run away to my aunt’s house at Patna a day in advance, as I did not want to appear for the Punjabi language exam.

“I reached New Delhi railway station to board the Janata Express and bought a ticket. While waiting for the train, I met a man who told me that he was he was a class I officer in Karnataka and offered me to accompany him in the AC compartment. I quickly changed into casuals so that nobody suspected me.

“It was only when the train reached Rajasthan that I learnt I had boarded a wrong train. However, I did not bother much and decided to face whatever came my way.

I alighted at Mumbai Central station and took a local train to Dadar, from where I could catch a train to Patna. Then I called my elder uncle, Jitendra Singh, who stays at Belgaum and informed him that I had fled. I asked him if I should come down to his house but he suggested that I should just sleep at the station and that he would come down to pick me up.

“I then called my mother. I met an uncle at a public phone booth at Dadar station and asked him where I could sleep. He inquired about me and I told him that I had been kidnapped. It was when he was taking me to a hotel for dinner outside Dadar station on the eastern side that the police saw us.”