RAWALPINDI, Jan 24: The six students who were recovered from a hotel in Peshawar four days after going missing from Rawalpindi were handed over to their parents after a magistrate recorded their statements here on Tuesday.

Counsel for Kausar Perveen, the mother of Iqra Naseem who had lodged a kidnapping case with the police, pleaded that his client wanted to withdraw the case because no abduction had taken place. The students in their separate statements also said nobody had kidnapped them nor the girls were hurt as they had gone on their own.

After this, the court ordered the police to hand over the children to their families and take advice from the city police chief for taking legal action against the school administration, if required.

It may be recalled that Abu Bakr, 18, (10th class); Waleed Akram, 15, (9th class); his sister Areeba Akram, 16, (class 10th); Wajeha Asghar, 17, (10th class); Iqra, 16, (9th class), and Hamza Ali, 16, of 9th class went missing after leaving their homes for the private school in Wilayat Colony on Thursday. Dawn

Talking to , Hamza Ali said: "It was our schoolteacher's attitude which drove us to escape." The students said they were to come back but after the issue was publicised they had no other choice but to remain away from their homes.

A cellphone was recovered from Areeba's socks during search at the women police station.

"In fact, the six students had gone to Abbottabad where a relative of Hamza's grandfather lived. They stayed there posing as they had been on a study tour," the principal of the school, Tabasum Shaheen said, adding the 'kidnapping drama' seemed to be a conspiracy against the school made by one of the missing students who had been expelled from the institution.

She said due to the disappearance of the students, other students in the school had been in distress.

Parents of the three boys held talks with the parents of the girls for several hours to convince their daughters not to go against their sons while recording their statements in the court as it would be harmful for them, a source close to the investigation said.

He said had the girls given statements against the boys, the latter would have been arrested and remanded in police custody. The families of the boys were worried and they thought it better to beg the girls' parents involving the police to convince them for favorable statements.

Sources said the delaying tactics used by the police in producing the students before the court were aimed to give an opportunity to the relatives of the boys to prepare the three students which was evident from their statements recorded by the court.

Meanwhile, the police had taken into custody two other students - Omer Noman and Owais Ali - along with the security guard of the school for investigation but they were released after the children were found in Peshawar.

A source said Omer had been a close friend of Waleed Akram and was in complete picture about the disappearance of the students.

They had given him a cellphone number before leaving the city telling him they were going to Lahore and he should keep them updated on everything happening in their homes.

The source said the cellphone number turned out to be fake and the students' stated destination was also not Lahore.