Kendrapara: The District Child Protection Unit and the police Thursday rescued a minor girl, whose marriage was solemnised with a 24-year-old man, from her in-laws’ house in Ananatakeshori village under Talachua Marine police station limits. The rescued girl was later produced before the District Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
Sources said Mithun Sahu of Ananatakeshori village fell in love with the minor girl. He took the girl with him to Gujarat three months back. After staying there for three months he returned with the girl and conducted a notary marriage at Rajnagar by producing false documents indicating that the girl was a major. Later, he solemnised his marriage with the girl at a local temple and they were staying at his house.
Recently, some people informed Child Line about the marriage and the District Child Protection Unit was alerted.
The District Child Protection Unit’s probationary officer Bibekananda Atabuddhi, counsellor Kanakalata Behera, CDPO of Rajnagar, Puspa Das, and the staff of Talachua Marine police station rushed to the house of Mithun and rescued the girl who was only 15 years old.
The girl was produced before the CWC to record her statement and she was sent to the RIESWA short stay home, official sources said.
In her statement, the girl said Mithun used to torture her if she refused to have physical intimacy with him while in Gujarat. She informed her elder sister about this and she asked Mithun to bring her sister to Kendrapara. The minor girl was staying at her elder sister’s house after returning from Gujarat.
Later, Mithun conducted a notary marriage at Rajnagar and a function was held at a temple, said Smitanjali Mohapatra, Chairperson of CWC.
During the rescue of the minor girl, her husband was present in the house. Why the CDPO, the DCPO team and the Talachua Marine police did not arrest the man is not known.
As the girl was a minor the man should have been arrested for kidnap and rape under the POCSO Act, said Smitanjali.
Meanwhile, the child protection unit staff are trying to settle the matter amicably to fill their pockets.
If the family of the girl does not lodge an FIR the CWC chairperson will lodge a complaint against the man at the Talachua Marine police station, said Smitanjali.
As per the Hindu Marriage Act at the time of marriage the bridegroom must have completed 21 years and the bride 18 years.
But here in some villages of Rajnagar and Mahakalapara blocks, the law has been thrown to the winds. Child marriages are going on every now and then under the very nose of the administration and the police.
The main reason for parents marrying off children early is illiteracy and poverty. Parents marry off their daughters at an early age, and by the time she becomes 18 or 19 she will be having two or three children. This is going on in several blocks of Kendrapara district.