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| India-Pakistan |
| Court drops attempted murder case against baby |
| 2014-04-13 |
| [Pak Daily Times] A court on Saturday threw out charges of attempted murder against a nine-month-old baby. The court also launched a separate case to look into how police pressed charges against baby Musa after his family clashed with gas company officials in a working class neighbourhood in Lahore. Police lodged a case against the whole family. The case drew international attention and sparked ridicule against the country's criminal justice system, after the toddler was photographed crying desperately while being fingerprinted in court. His grandfather was later seen trying to comfort him with a milk bottle. "Sergeant! Arrest the lot of them!" "The kid, too?" "All of them!" Inspector Kashif, who was at the scene of the crime and pressed attempted murder charges against the baby, has since been suspended. The charges were in direct contradiction with minimum age of criminal responsibility, which was raised from seven to 12 years in 2013 except in terrorism cases. Police told judge Rafaqat Ali Qamar Saturday that the baby was 'no longer required in the case'. Musa's grandfather, Yasin, subsequently withdrew a bail application for the baby as the court dropped the case. Yasin had accused police of fabricating the charges because they were colluding with a rival party who wanted to see the accused evicted from their land and had obtained an order to remove their gas connections. Yasin and four others, including his son Imran, are on bail in the case and the charges against them remain. "We want justice and protection from the land grabbers," Yasin told news hounds outside the court. He said a land grabbing 'mafia' was threatening him and other residents of the area. "Police will be solely responsible if the mafia causes any harm to the residents," he added. Local human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. activist Tariq Farooq said that the attitude of the police was 'anti-worker and anti-poor'. "We don't expect any good from the police, who often implicate the poor in false cases and then exploit and victimise them," Tariq added. Khwaja Khalid Farooq, a former Punjab police chief, said that implicating an infant in a murder case was 'totally illegal'. He added that he was opposed to a growing reliance by police on 'first information reports' (FIRs), saying that the reports are often misused to exert pressure in disputes with other parties. "This is an outdated system, which needs to be reformed," Farooq told AFP. "They (the police) should rather focus on thorough investigation to get to the facts." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 "kid threw rocks like a professional pitcher. He's being sent to Hek's camp to train the grenade-tossers" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-04-13 17:16 |
| #2 Corruption knows no borders. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2014-04-13 14:53 |
| #1 Yasinhad accused police of fabricating the charges because they were colluding with a rival party who wanted to see the accused evicted from their land and had obtained an order to remove their gas connections. I didn't know that Harry Reid is Pakistani?! |
| Posted by: charger 2014-04-13 14:23 |