The teen-aged schoolboy, whose reported ‘death’ sparked off violence in Bihar and was found alive on Monday in Mehrauli along with his girlfriend, told police that they had married secretly and eloped from Madhubani to start a new life.

Three persons were killed in police firing when violence erupted in Bihar.

Prashant Jha, 17 and Preeti Chaudhary, 16, left for their native place on Tuesday afternoon after Bihar Police took them into custody.

Prashant and Preeti, class 10 students of Indian Public School, told police that they had secretly married in February at a temple. They decided to flee Madhubani on September 7 and went to Ranchi in Jharkhand, where they stayed for one-and-a-half-day.

In fear of being caught, they took a train to Darjeeling in West Bengal and stayed there for some 25 days.

Then they went to Jammu and spent five days there. On realising that they were left with little money, they decided to come to Delhi to find a job and live there.

They landed in the Capital on Monday morning and went to Mehrauli as Prashant had heard about the place from his aunt, who lives there. He neither had the address nor the phone number of his aunt though.

The couple went to Mehrauli from Old Delhi railway station to see the Qutub Minar. Left with only Rs 900, they were discussing about the next course of action at a tea stall in Mehrauli when local resident M N Jha overheard their conversation in Maithili.

M N Jha interacted with them, and informed police, following which a police team from Bihar took them into their custody, said a senior police officer.

They seemed confused over whether to return home or stay in Delhi. They were looking for some arrangement to stay here and wanted to look for a job, police said.

Violence erupted in Madhubani after Prashant’s parents claimed that a headless body found by police was of their son.