The auto driver, Bhupinder Singh, claiming to have been kept at a police station in Noida overnight, told Zee TV that two men approached him at Sarita Vihar on Friday and gave him Rs 50 to drop Anant home, saying the child had lost his way.

They asked him to drop the boy at the address given on his school badge.

"They approached me at the gas station near Apollo Hospital and I took the boy home," he claimed, raising doubts about the police claim that they took custody of the child in Kakod area on Noida-Bulandshahar border and a policeman accompanied him in the auto to his Sector 15 residence in Noida.

Singh said the boy, who cried on the way, was not accompanied by anyone when he took him home.

He said the guard at the Gupta residence did not recognise the child and took him inside the house along with the boy.

Later, he was called in and the whole family was elated to see the child. He was given sweets and something to eat.

Police took him to the Sector 63 police station, where he was kept overnight and not allowed to make any phone calls, he said.

He said Anant's mother visited him in the police station and gave him a reward of Rs 1000.

Singh said he was let off by the police on Saturday.

Corroborating the auto driver's version, Anant's maternal grandfather Kanak Kumar Varshney said the child was brought home by a man who said he was an auto driver.

"He said somebody handed the child over to him near the Apollo Hospital," Varshney said.

"I just told him that you are my God because you have brought back my grandson. I began weeping. And then I asked him to sit and take sweets and told him we will reward him," he said.

Varshney said he then asked his son-in-law and Anant's father Naresh Gupta to come downstairs immediately, adding the family then informed the police about the child's return.