Five-year-old appears in Jharkhand court

A five-year-old boy in Jharkhand appeared in a court after a non-bailable warrant was issued against him for destroying plants in a forest.

A five-year-old boy in Jharkhand appeared in a court after a non-bailable warrant was issued against him for destroying plants in a forest. And the case had been filed in September 2002 when he was only 14 months old!

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Sone Lal Murmu appeared before the Giridih district court with his father on Monday and filed a discharge petition, said media reports in Ranchi. The court deferred the hearing of bail.

An overzealous forest department had lodged a first information report (FIR) against Sone Lal and four others on Sep 18, 2002, alleging that they had gone to graze their domestic cattle in the forest and destroyed 541 plants.

The FIR also stated that Sone Lal and the others had escaped when the forest guards tried to arrest them.

"I came to know about the case when a non bailable warrant was issued by the court against my son. Last week the police reached our home to arrest my son. I requested them not to do so because of his age," said his father Gunshaw Murmu.

He asked the obvious question: "How can a 14-month-old boy destroy forest coverage."

Some months ago, the electricity department had lodged an FIR against a two-year-old boy on charges of power theft.