India Cops Charge Baby With Coercion

Nazim is 12 months old, at most
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 11, 2014 2:40 PM CDT
India Cops Charge Baby With Coercion
A polling official, right, marks the finger of a man with ink before he casts his vote at a polling station in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in May.   (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh)

India police are apparently determined to keep baby criminals off the streets—not novice criminals, actual babies. Officers in rural Uttar Pradesh charged a kid named Nazim, whose age is somewhere between 10 months and a year, with coercion and intimidation, reports the BBC. It's not a case of mistaken identity, either. The officers included Nazim on a list of suspected trouble-makers, including his father, ahead of local elections. Apparently, the officers felt that Nazim and his cohorts would try to intimidate voters and planned to round them up ahead of time, reports the Times of India.

Officers delivered the summons Saturday to the incredulous family, but it appears that common sense will prevail. A senior police official in Moradabad says Nazim is in the clear and the two officers involved were being suspended. "We have taken the matter very seriously and are ensuring such incidents do not happen in the future," he says. The BBC lists at least two other cases in recent years in which kids aged 6 or younger were booked on serious charges. (In Pakistan earlier this year, a 9-month-old got charged with attempted murder.)

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