A 12-year-old boy from Kochi, Kerala, has become India's youngest father with the mother a 16-year-old girl, who happens to be his first cousin. The police have reportedly booked both of them under the 2012 Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and are probing the case.
Both the boy and the girl, who are neighbours, have been booked under the POCSO Act because they are now both accused of having sex with an underage person. They have been let off on bail after they were presented in court in connection with the case.
Everyone is asking: How?
The girl gave birth in Ernakulam in November 2016, with questions being raised as to who the father was. A paternity test confirmed that the male chromosomes in the baby came from the girl's 12-year-old cousin.
Although the families of both minors remain tight-lipped about the incident, questions are being raised as to how such a young boy could have become a father.
Reports have claimed this is due to something called "precocious puberty", a condition in which a child achieves puberty well before it's normal.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time that such a young boy has become a father.
The youngest father ever recorded is an unnamed boy in Auckland, New Zealand, who became father at the age of 11, in 2013. The case led to criminal charges filed against the 36-year-old woman who had given birth to his child. The boy was a friend of the woman's son, local reports at the time said.
