Court reminds cops of Krishna ‘bal leela’, frees boy accused of stealing sweets

The boy was handed over to police after his aunt found out that he had eaten all the sweets stored in her fridge and also stolen a mobile phone from her house

A juvenile court in Bihar’s Nalanda district on Thursday ordered release of a boy accused of stealing sweets and a mobile phone from his aunt’s house and said that police should not have registered a case in the matter since a child’s indiscretions need be seen in the light of Lord Krishna’s ‘Bal Leela’.

The juvenile court said police should have acted sensitively and realised that there was no need to lodge an FIR in this case. (HT Photo)

“In our mythology, childhood activities of Lord Krishna have been very eloquently demonstrated. He often entered other people’s houses and broke the container [carrying homemade butter]. Had the society then been like today, the ‘bal leela’ would have never happened,” said principal magistrate, juvenile, Manvendra Mishra.

The matter related to a village in Harnaut block of Nalanda, where a boy during a visit to his maternal grandmother, entered his aunt’s house in the neighbourhood and ate all the sweets stored in the fridge and also stole a mobile phone from the house and was later found playing with it outside the house. When she found out, the boy’s aunt handed him over to the police.

The court said that “one would have to be tolerant and large-minded in matters related to children and understand the reasons behind their deviation for the society to be able to itself take steps to rectify such small offences.”

The court said police should have acted sensitively and realised that there was no need to lodge an FIR in this case. “Registering the matter in the daily case diary would have been sufficient,” the court said. It also directed the child protection unit to ensure that the boy in question was not harassed.

During counselling, the boy told the magistrate that his father, a bus driver and the sole bread earner for the family, had been bed-ridden due to serious spinal injury after an accident. He said his mother was ill too but unable to afford treatment due to their poverty. The boy promised never to repeat the mistake.

Senior advocate cum child activist Krishna Deo Mishra said he welcomed the decision of the board. “All juvenile boards must follow these rules concerning children,” he added.