The Delhi-Lahore bus does not leave till after six in the morning, but 13-year-old Munir could not wait till then.

"The boy was so eager to unite with his family members (in Pakistan) that he got up at around 3 a.m. and woke up all of us too," Rajasthan police Sub-inspector Subhash Punia said.

An illiterate, Munir, had inadvertently strayed into Sri Ganganagar district in Rajasthan on June 26 and was immediately detained.

The teenageer's plight came to light in the aftermath of the media attention on two-year-old Pakistani girl Noor Fatima, who travelled to Bangalore in July for heart surgery.

Munir was on Friday released from a juvenile home in Bikaner as a special gesture from Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Pakistan High Commission officials handed over his travel documents and passport on Tuesday morning at Rajasthan House in Delhi, where he had been put up since his arrival on Sunday, facilitating his journey to Vatu village via Lahore.

Early on Tuesday morning, amidst cheers, he left for his home in Pakistan by the Delhi-Lahore bus.

"I am taking pleasant memories of my stay in India," Munir said.

The boy also seemed to be bitten by the Bollywood bug as just before boarding the bus he erupted into a popular Hindi number - Pardesi, pardesi, jana nahi...

More reports from Pakistan