In a shocking incident, a Japanese couple abandoned their seven-year-old boy, Yamato Tanooka, all alone, by himself, in the Hokkaido mountains. 

Why? Because they wanted to “punish him”.

It has been over two days since the boy went missing. What makes matters worse is that the region is notorious for its population of wild bears, known as Ussuri brown bear, reports BBC

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The parents when they filed a missing report lied to the police, saying that the boy had wandered off when they were looking for wild vegetables, reports The Telegraph.

However, the father, Takayuki later confessed to “having left him alone for five minutes to punish him”, but when they went back, the child was no where to be found, reports Japan Times.

b’File photo of the Hokkaido mountain range | Twitter’

Over 100 rescuers and police officers have been deployed to track the boy.

(Feature image source: Twitter | @BBCNews)