Advocate Ajit Kumar Singh’s house at Anandpuri in Patna. Telegraph picture

The 18-year-old daughter of a Patna High Court advocate resurfaced at a police station in Buxar on Wednesday, nearly a month after she went missing from her home in the state capital.

She told the police that she eloped to marry the young man whom her father had accused of kidnapping her. Her husband, Sunil, is 20 years old.

The girl, a resident of Anandpuri, had gone missing on April 24. Her father, Ajit Kumar Singh, had lodged an FIR at the SK Puri police station on the same day, accusing Indrapuri resident Sunil and his family members of kidnapping the girl.

On April 28, the senior advocate had filed a habeas corpus petition with the high court, following which Chief Justice Rekha M. Doshit directed the police to recover the missing girl within 24 hours.

Patna senior superintendent of police Amrit Raj, however, told The Telegraph on Wednesday: “The court did not ask the police to recover the girl within 24 hours. The direction was to find the girl as soon as possible. She herself came up to a police station in Buxar district, 180km from the state capital, today (Wednesday).”

After returning to Patna, the girl said: “We were in love and I went with him (Sunil) willingly. First, we went to Danapur. Then we took a train to Pune, where we stayed at his friend’s house for two days. Then, we went to Balia in Uttar Pradesh, which is close to Buxar. There, we married at a temple on May 14. Then, I reported to the Bhojpur outpost in Buxar.”

Raj said the girl was alone when she surrendered.

She had recently taken Class CBSE XII examination. Sunil was a fellow student at a private coaching institute where she used to study.

Singh had earlier said: “My daughter is a student of Baldwin Public School. After her disappearance, I learnt from her private notebook that two boys at the coaching institute — Amrit and Sunil — used to harass her. My daughter had also told me about it in February, and I removed her from the institute. The two boys had a fight over my daughter. Amrit called me up to tell me that Sunil was harassing my daughter but I warned him to not to bother us. Sunil continued to pester her, though.”

The girl, however, said: “There was some misunderstanding between the boys and me. But that was before I knew Sunil very well.”

A police officer told The Telegraph: “It is not a case of kidnapping. We have been investigating the case for more than a month now. We had found out that they had eloped to Pune. The couple were having an affair and the girl went with the boy willingly.”