PARADIP: A 14-year-old student of a school in Paradip sent the police into a tizzy by cooking up a false story of kidnapping while waiting for his school bus.
The boy later admitted to fabricating the story to avoid school and homework. Sources said the boy, a resident of Uchhabanandpur within Kujang police limits takes the bus to school after leaving his bicycle at a stand near no 15 chowk on Cuttack-Paradip state highway. However, after missing the bus, he decided to return home at around 7 am on Monday.
As per his initial claim, some miscreants in a Scorpio SUV, including a woman asked him for water and forcibly kidnapped him. He said the miscreants tied his hands and gagged him before beating him. The boy then said they took him to the canal bridge at Marsaghai in Kendrapara district, where they stopped for breakfast. It was during this time, the boy claimed, that he managed to untie himself using his teeth and escaped. However, he fell near the canal bridge where a passerby found him and contacted his family, who rushed to rescue him.
Following his rescue, the boy’s father filed an FIR at Kujang police station. Teams from Kujang, Paradip Model, Paradip Lock and Tirtol police stations immediately began a manhunt for the accused.
However, police grew suspicious when the boy claimed that the kidnappers had loaded his bicycle on the Scorpio.
Upon further interrogation, contradictions in his statement emerged, and the boy eventually confessed to fabricating the entire kidnapping story to avoid the burden of school and homework.
His father submitted a written statement to Kujang police, retracting the kidnapping case and expressing regret over his son’s actions. The boy’s father is an employee of IFFCO fertiliser plant in Paradip while his mother is a bank employee.
SP Bhawani Shankar Udgata, confirmed that the student had invented the kidnapping story to escape the pressure of school. “The boy’s father initially lodged a kidnapping complaint, but later retracted it after his son confessed to the false claim,” he said.