TEHRAN The newspaper delivery man knew something was wrong when he saw a boy aged seven wandering on his own along a street in the wee, small hours of Tuesday morning, DPA reported from Germany.

The delivery man took the boy to the police station at Nieder-Olm, near the city of Mainz, where it emerged that he had got out of bed when his alarm clock sounded at 3 a.m. he had dressed, farewelled his sleeping mother and left with his school bag to go to school.

When he saw that no cars or pedestrians were on the streets, the boy returned home but the doorbell had been switched off, so he resumed his journey to school.