Dubai: A nine-year-old Indian boy gave his parents a harrowing time for several hours after he ran away from home on Saturday.

The grade 4 student went missing for nearly 10 hours before he was found a few kilometres away from his residential community, his father and neighbours in the Samari Residences in Ras Al Khor told Gulf News.

The father said the boy could have run away due to the pressure of studying for the ongoing exams. “It may be because of the pressure,” he said. The boy has to sit for two more formative assessment papers and the paper on Sunday is Arabic.

“Till now we haven’t asked him much… But we asked him how he went and he said it was through gate one [of the community]. He is scared now. So we are trying to console him and close the case with the police,” the father told Gulf News while he was at the police station.

The boy had apparently gone out to play around 6.30am. Both the parents had gone to work and his younger brother was with the maid at home. Neighbours said the boy returned home after half an hour and left his skateboard at the entrance of their flat on the second floor. “But, he did not go inside the flat and went out again,” said one neighbour.

He said probably the maid noticed that the boy was missing when it was time for him to get ready for his karate class around 8.30am.

She informed the parents and they rushed back home. “Many people in the community also joined them to search for the boy,” the neighbour said.

The news spread through WhatsApp groups and more people in the area went in search of the missing child. The parents also called the police and they began an investigation by checking the CCTV footage and questioning the security guards.

The father said it was one of his friends, who went outside the community looking for the boy, who finally found him. He spotted the child at a bus stop near the Union Coop store in Al Aweer, a few kilometres away from the community past 4pm. Apparently, the boy went around exploring the shops in the area,

Thanking the friend who found his son and all others who helped search for him, the father said the incident is an eye-opener that parents and building security should be more careful about children’s whereabouts.

Echoing the same thoughts, another neighbour said parents in the community were shocked and have felt the need for being more careful with the way they deal with children and supervise them.

He said the residents were also annoyed about the vague reply from security guards. “They said the CCTV cameras were getting upgraded and may not have captured the child’s movements. We don’t know if the cameras were actually working.”

The father said the parents would seek the help of the school counsellor and support the child to recover from the trauma.