A sub-collector in Kerala has jumped home quarantine, prescribed after his honeymoon trip abroad, and fled to his native Uttar Pradesh without informing his superior.

Kollam sub-collector Anupam Mishra has been booked under sections that prescribe a minimum of two years in jail, if found guilty.

He has also been suspended from service for disobeying his superior, a grave offence under the civil servants’ service code.

Mishra had got married in February and travelled to Malaysia and Singapore with his wife, district collector B. Abdul Nasar told reporters on Friday.

“When he returned on March 19, I asked him to go into home quarantine for 14 days,” the collector said.

But the 2016-batch IAS officer, appointed Kollam sub-collector about four months ago, allegedly caught a flight to Bangalore on March 19 and headed to Kanpur.

While everyone thought he was holed up in his Kollam flat, some neighbours on Thursday informed the authorities that the sub-collector’s apartment had been dark for the past few days.

Initially, everybody feared that Mishra had suffered some health problem and collapsed inside his apartment.

When officials tried to get the police to break the door open, Mishra’s armed guard called him on his personal number.

The sub-collector told the guard he was not in town and would later speak to the collector.

He subsequently told the collector that he was in Bangalore with his brother, a doctor.

Suspecting foul play, the collector instructed the police cyber cell to track the number and found that Mishra was in Kanpur and not Bangalore.

Confronted with the evidence, Mishra pleaded that he had thought home quarantine meant going home to Uttar Pradesh.

“What he is saying is that he thought ‘home quarantine’ meant staying at his home (in his native place),” Nasar told reporters.

Mishra also told the collector he felt safer at home in Uttar Pradesh and that he had been unable to procure food in Kollam.

But Nasar dismissed the claim. “How can anyone believe that someone who lives in Kollam town didn’t get food? If he had a problem with food he should have informed us,” he said.

Nasar said Mishra had also claimed he didn’t know that Malaysia and Singapore were on the list of countries that attracted compulsory quarantine for all travellers to India.

Investigations are on to find out whether Mishra’s security guard and driver knew about his plans to flee quarantine. If so, they will be booked for complicity.