A team of the chief minister’s flying squad, the district child welfare committee (CWC), and an NGO called Nav Prayas busted a child marriage racket in Haryana’s Faridabad. The police raided a house and caught the gang red-handed on Monday while they were preparing for the wedding of a 14-year-old girl to a 40-year-old man.
The police have arrested three people, including the main accused Asha Devi, her sister-in-law Seema Kumari, and the groom Anil Kumar, from Rajiv Colony in Sector 58.
Faridabad Child Marriage Racket Caught
1. The police revealed that they received a tip from Sunil Yadav, a member of the Child Welfare Committee. Yadav informed the police that a gang had been involved in getting elderly men, widowers, and divorcees married to minor girls from lower economic backgrounds.
2. The gang had been charging between Rs. 1 lakh and Rs. 2.5 lakh for arranging the wedding.
3. The Deputy Superintendent of Police, Rajesh Kumar, said that the accused would approach elderly men, widowers, and divorcees who have been unable to get married. They have been running this racket for the past three years.
4. Asha Devi was the chief of the gang. She was also involved in illegal liquor smuggling. The police revealed that she has a network across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh.
5. DSP Kumar said that Asha Devi would lure girls from economically poor backgrounds and forge the girls’ IDs to tamper with their ages. They would call a priest to conduct the wedding rituals. They also used to ask the members of the girls’ families to send minors to their houses for grooming and later force them to have sex with multiple men. The accused used to threaten the minor girls and their families.
6. The gang had married off over 60 minor girls so far, said the police.
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7. On Monday, a minor girl approached the Child Welfare Committee and complained that she had been tricked into marriage and delivered a baby at 15 years old. She said she was sold to a 40-year-old man for Rs. 60,000. He had raped her and imprisoned her until she managed to escape. With the details of the racket provided by the girl, the police raided the house in Sector 58 and rescued a minor who was brought from Uttar Pradesh.
8. After further investigation, police discovered that the racket had been run by three people for the past three years. They have been luring women under the guise of finding a marital alliance for them. Once the girls reached Faridabad, they were sold to older men.
9. The police also said that the minor girls were raped by the family members of Asha Devi and Seema Kumari. The accused have been arrested, and cases under sections 16, 17, and 6 of the POCSO Act, section 81 of the Juvenile Justice Act, and sections 120B420, 468, and 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) were filed on Monday at Sector 58 police station.
10. Despite child marriage being illegal in the country, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) says 32 percent of girls in Assam were married before the age of 18. Earlier in February this year, over 3000 people, including 93 women, were arrested in Assam after the government launched a massive child marriage crackdown across the state.
Suggested Reading: Assam Child Marriage Crackdown: What More Can Be Done To Prevent The Act?
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