Kids aged 13 and 11 attempt to elope

They must have thought that marriage was  ‘child’s play’. Akash, 13, and Akansha (names changed), 11, both students of class 8 and 7 at a school in Lucknow, thought that they were in love with each other and decided to marry.

The two ‘child lovers’ planned to get married in the hill town of Nainital in Uttarakhand, about 400 kilometres from here, and eloped from their homes with some cash a few days back. The kids boarded a train to Bareilly on the way to Nainital.

Fortunately for the duo, a man overheard them discussing marriage plans in Bareilly. As he found them too young to marry, he informed the local cops, who brought them to police station and from there they were handed back to their families on Monday.

Police sources here said the two children told the cops that they were ‘very close to each other’ and had decided to ‘live together forever’.

“We knew that our families would not allow us to live together so we decided to run away and marry,” they told the police in Bareilly.

The duo stole some cash from their homes and set off to Bareilly by train on Saturday. They planned to take a bus to Nainital from Bareilly, sources said.

As they were discussing their plan, they were overheard by a passerby in Bareilly, who grew suspicious after finding them to be too young. The cops also found that a missing report had been lodged by the girl’s family in Lucknow.

The Bareilly police informed their Lucknow counterpart and a police team, accompanied by the family members of the two children, reached there and brought them back home.
No case was registered as none of the families pressed charges, police sources said.

“Anything could have happened to them. They could have fallen in the hands of human traffickers,” a police official said.