Bizarre yet true. A Class IX student from Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur district staged his own kidnapping to buy an iPhone, with the ransom money that he planned to collect from his father. He took the step after his father, who owns a small garment store, expressed his inability to buy him the device.

The boy was caught when police started investigations into the case and traced his location to his friend's house. He had used his friend's phone to make a ransom call demanding Rs 5 lakh from his father, as per a report by IANS.

Sitapur Kotwali SHO TP Singh informed that the boy studies in a government school and lives with his father. "When the student did not return home after school on Wednesday (March 15), his father and other relatives started a manhunt. Later, they received a ransom call on WhatsApp for Rs 5 lakh. The amount had to be delivered at Khairabad near a mosque," said Singh.

After the father informed the police, cops, cyber and Special Operations Group (SOG) teams of the district got on the case. "We assured the complainant about his son's rescue and a team in civil clothes went with him as he collected the amount for the safe release of his son," the SHO said.

Later in the night, the police zeroed in on the location of the mobile phone used for the ransom call. When the phone was found to belong to a footwear shop owner, he was questioned. It then came to light that the device was being used by his son, who was also a student of Class IX.

"A woman police officer was asked to confront the boy's friend, and he spilled the beans. Later, another team traced the missing child from his house. The boy has been handed over to his father after counselling," Singh concluded, as per IANS.