9-month-old Mohammed Musa is perhaps the youngest person in the world to be charged with attempted murder. In one of the most absurd cases in recent times, the kid, along with his family, was accused of attacking government officials. The baby was ultimately presented in court, and get this – instead of dropping the charges, the judge ended up granting him bail. The incident in question took place in February, when Musa’s family home in Lahore was raided by a group of police officers and energy officials. The family of 30 was accused of not paying their bills, to which they responded violently – by allegedly threatening the officials and attacking them with stones and wooden sticks until they were forced to run for their lives. Sub-inspector Kashif Mohammed, who was in charge of the crime scene, later wrote a First Incident Report (FIR), calling it a case of attempted murder. He apparently believed that the entire family was responsible. So he chose not to leave any of them out of the report, not even the baby. Following the report, the child and his family were arrested.

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When baby Musa appeared before a judge last Friday, he sat on his father’s lap, sucking on his bottle. Anyone could have guessed that the baby was innocent, but the judge chose to grant him bail. Musa couldn’t even sign his own bail documents – he began to cry as his grandfather dipped his finger in a bottle of ink and placed it on the bond. “Everyone in the court was saying, ‘How can such a small child be implicated in any case?’ What kind of police do we have?” asked 50-year-old Mohammed Yasin, the baby’s grandfather. The case hearing has now been postponed to April 12, when the child is expected to make another appearance in court.

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Inspector Kashif has since been suspended from duty for negligence while filing the case. According to Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Rana Abdul Jabbar, a probe has been ordered into the incident. “A nine-month-old can never commit such a crime,” he said. “This incident took place due to sheer misunderstanding on the police’s part and was not done on purpose.” Apparently, the inspector lodged a complaint against all the men in the family – Yasin, his two sons Imran and Irfan, and their sons as well. Unfortunately, Inspector Kashif didn’t realize that Imran had only one son, an infant. He wrote in the report that the accused caught him, beat him up and gave him a head injury. How a 9-month-old could have managed all that is anyone’s guess.

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Yasin has claimed that the police had fabricated all charges because they wanted to ultimately evict the family and their neighbors from the area. The first step was to illicitly sever their cooking gas line. “The police and gas company officials came without any notice and started removing gas meters from our houses,” he said.

“Residents started protesting and blocked the road but ended the protest when senior police officers arrived in the area and assured them that no injustice would be done. But later, we found out that cases have been filed against us.” According to Mohammed Ahmed, Musa’s father, the police registered fake cases against a total of 25 people from the area.

Chaudhry Irfan Sadiq, the family’s lawyer, said that the court should have dropped all charges against the child. “The court should have simply referred the minor’s case to the High Court to drop the charges against the innocent child and acquit him from the case,” he said. “This case exposes the incompetence of our police force and the way they are operating.”

In Pakistan, the minimum age of criminal responsibility was increased last year from 7 years to 12 years, except in cases related to terrorism. But the judge chose to ignore the law, claiming that the case wasn’t under his jurisdiction. Sources: RT, The Express Tribune