Howrah, Sept. 11: He is safe, but not yet home.

Twelve-year-old Prayag Sen (not his real name), who left home on Thursday unable to handle the pressure at school, has been located in a Railway Protection Force officer?s house in Vizag.

?My son is in the safe custody of the RPF officials in Vizag and they are taking good care of him,? his mother said. ?My husband is on his way to Vizag and should reach there late tonight. He will bring our son back home.?

Prayag, a student of a missionary school in Howrah, had left his Shibpur home after his principal threatened he would not be allowed to sit for his examination for losing his library card.

Last morning, Prayag called up his parents to tell them that he was in Vizag. Prayag?s father left immediately, but before that he called up the Vizag station-master and requested him to be on the lookout for his son. Alerted, the railway police spotted the boy and took him into their care.

?My boy is so young and he did not have a clue about his whereabouts, which is why he did not stray out of the station,? his mother said. ?Thank God for that and for the fact that he is alive and well today. I have been told that he is being looked after well.?

Prayag?s mother said a railway police official had taken her son home and was keeping him there with his family till his father arrived to pick him up. ?I am just waiting to see my son again,? his mother said.

Howrah superintendent Mihir Bhattacharjee confirmed that Prayag was in safe hands. ?It is good that he was spotted and taken care of before he ran into problems,? he said.

For some odd reason, Prayag?s mother said, he would often ask where the Coromondal Express went and which stations it touched. ?It was one of the few trains he knew about,? she said, explaining why he must have boarded the train.