Purnea, March 8: An eight-year-old boy is facing charges of murder of a 21-year-old woman in the district.

The boy, along with his father, Baban Yadav, came to the office of the superintendent of police today to explain the case.

Baban said his son had been “wrongly framed” in the case, and he is completely innocent.

“My son has been falsely implicated in this case and I brought him here to prove that point before the superintendent of police,” he told The Telegraph.

Saraswati Kumari, the 21-year-old woman, before dying said that the boy poured kerosene on her body before setting her on fire.

In her statement to the district police, Saraswati had also stated that the boy’s mother Pramila Devi had instigated her son to commit this crime.

Saraswati had given the statement on October 28 last year while she was being treated for serious burn injuries. She had been admitted to the Purnea Sadar Hospital. She died soon after.

Based on Saraswati’s statement at the hospital last year, police went on to arrest Pramila but the eight-year-old child managed to evade arrest.

After coming to know about the details of the case, Purnea superintendent of police Amit Lodha said that police would re-investigate the case. He pointed out that the accused who has been named appears to be too young to commit such a crime.

Police sources said the investigation in the case went in the wrong direction as Saraswati by mistake took the name of the child in place of Tipu Yadav. Tipu happens to be the elder brother of the accused boy.

The police said as the name was mentioned as the dying declaration, alterations of any manner on the name of details of the accused person could be made only after a directive in this regard from the senior officials.