12-year-old boy missing from Bengaluru found in Hyderabad

Bengaluru: Parinav, the 12-year-old boy reported missing from Whitefield on Sunday, has been located at the Nampally metro station in Hyderabad, police officials confirmed on Wednesday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Whitefield, Shivakumar Gunare informed DH that Parinav’s family travelled to Hyderabad on Tuesday night after receiving confirmation about his whereabouts.

“A woman who was working in Bengaluru and was visiting Hyderabad came across social media posts of the missing boy and spotted him at the station. She promptly flagged it to his family and the police,” he said.

Police sources revealed that Parinav sold three Parker pens for Rs 100 each before taking a bus to Mysuru. From Mysuru, he travelled by train to Chennai and then to Hyderabad, all without tickets.

Parinav’s mother, who previously posted a video urging his return, shared another video on Wednesday morning, assuring viewers of his safety and expressing gratitude to netizens for their support in locating him.

Who is Parinav? 

Parinav, a class 6 student at Deens Academy in Gunjur, attended tutoring classes at the Allen Institute in Whitefield. CCTV footage captured him at Majestic at 4.39 pm on Sunday wearing a yellow T-shirt, dark trousers, and a backpack.

Dinesh Garg, a software engineer and Parinav’s neighbour, told DH that the boy’s father Sukesh was supposed to pick him up from the Allen Institute on Sunday.

“By the time he arrived there, around 12.30 pm, he was told that Parinav had already left the institute,” Garg added. 

The family, originally from Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, had been living in a villa complex near the Hope Farm signal in Whitefield for the past five years.

Residents who spoke to DH described Parinav as a responsible child, who took care of his younger brother.

They mentioned no recent behavioural changes and attributed the incident to academic pressure.

Good academic record: Coaching centre

A coordinator at Allen Institute stated that Parinav punched out of the attendance system at 12.11 pm.

“Since a bulk of students went out together through the students’ exit, he went missing while the parents had entered through the main gate,” said the coordinator, adding that Parinav displayed a good academic track record in the one year that he was being tutored.

He claimed that students below class 8 are not allowed to leave without their parents, while older students could leave only after their parents sent a ‘permission mail’ to the institute.

The central government’s education ministry recently stipulated that coaching centres could not enroll students below 16 years of age.