7-year-old child referred to 21-year-old case, order against the plaintiff
The court ordered to file a case against the plaintiff for filing a case of attempted murder of a 7-year-old child in Natore's Gurdaspur by pretending to be 21 years old. Judge (District and Sessions Judge) Muhammad Rafiqul Islam of Natore Women and Child Abuse Prevention Tribunal gave this order at around 11:30 on Tuesday.
At the same time, the investigating officer of the case, Bakhtiar Hossain, has been ordered to release the child within seven days and submit the report.
According to court sources, on April 26, a 7-year-old child appeared in court and applied for bail in a case of attempted murder of Gurdaspur police station. The court, while reviewing the documents of the case, found that the plaintiff had mentioned the age of the accused as 21 years in the statement of the case. But according to the birth certificate, he was about seven years old on the date of the incident.
The child is a first class student of a government primary school in the upazila. After hearing the matter, the court immediately granted bail to the child. At the same time, the plaintiff of the case and the investigating officer sought an apology as to why the actual age of the child was not mentioned. Sasreer appeared in court today and ordered him to be pardoned.
In this regard, a report was published in Prothom Alo's online edition on April 26 titled 'Suit of 7-year-old child in Natore as 21-year-old, plaintiff summoned to court'.
According to the order of the court, investigating officer Gurdaspur Police Station Sub-Inspector (SI) Bakhtiar Hossain and plaintiff Shahanur Rahman appeared in the Women and Child Abuse Prevention Tribunal at around 11:30 am today.
The investigating officer told the court that he went to the area in search of the accused persons immediately after taking charge of the investigation. However, due to secrecy, it was not possible to verify the age of the concerned persons. The accused also did not inform the police about the fact that he was underage. He requested to look at the matter with a sympathetic eye.
After hearing the statement of the investigating officer, the court directed him to immediately file a case against the plaintiff for providing wrong information to the Gurdaspur police station. In addition to this order, the court ordered him to submit a report to the court within seven days, exempting the child from the case. Bakhtiar Hossain confirmed this information to Prothom Alo.
When the plaintiff asked the court for forgiveness in this regard, the court said that there is no forgiveness for this crime. Age can be more or less two-one years. So there is no chance to write age of 21 years for 7 year old child. He must come under the law.
State Counsel (PP) Abdul Quader said in the court, if false information is provided to the public servant, there is a provision to take action against the concerned persons in Section 177 and 182 of the Penal Code. If convicted under this section, the accused can be punished with imprisonment up to six months and fine up to one thousand rupees or both.
