Thripunithura: Parents and relatives of an 11-year-old boy here went through some anxious moments on Sunday afternoon after he locked up the family in their apartment and went on a pleasure trip.

The transactions he made using the father's ATM card provided clues to the police as they managed to track him down within eight hours from a star hotel in the city.

The boy, a Class VI student of a private school in Thripunithura, went missing around 4.30 pm on Sunday from their apartment on Market Road. After a desperate search proved futile, the relatives filed a missing complaint with the Hill Palace police around 7 pm.

Acting swiftly, the police alerted all the railway stations, bus stands, hotels, and online taxi services across the state and circulated his photographs.

When the parents informed the cops about the missing ATM card, they tried to trace the boy’s location with the help of the two online transactions he made in a span of one hour.

A police squad, led by Hill Palace SI S. Sanal and V. B. Anas, rushed to a shopping mall in Kochi after the bank with which the boy’s father holds accounts confirmed that he had used the ATM card to book a cinema ticket at a multiplex there around 9.30 pm. However, by the time the officers reached the spot, the boy had left the place.

It was then the bank officials informed the cops that the boy had made another transaction using the card at a luxury hotel in the area. Later, it was revealed that he had dinner from the hotel and attempted to book a room.

The cops tracked him down to the hotel around 12 midnight and handed him over to the parents.

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