RAHA , June 28 - In a dramatic move, following an input a team of Raha police on Monday night rescued a 14-year-old girl, who was to be married off to a 37-year-old man from Haryana.
According to police, following an alert that a child marriage was going to take place at Pohupuri Khaiti village, Dighaldori under Raha PS on Monday, a police team along with the village head rushed to the spot and met the family members of the girl. They found that the family from a poor background had decided to marry their daughter to a 37-year-old businessman named Bajrang Lal, son of Late Ram Narayan of Nuniawal village in Mahendra Garh district of Haryana.
With the help of the village head and the local people, the police spoke to the parents and explained to them the legal age for marriage and the consequences of violating the law. The team also provided counselling to the parents. Subsequently, they stopped the marriage which was about to take place at the bride�s house.
Talking to this correspondent, Moloy Kumar Acharjee, officer-in-charge of Raha PS who led the police team said that the girl was not interested in the marriage and was forced into the marriage by her uncle Mahendra Nath who provided shelter to the man from Haryana in his house for about a month. As the girl�s father had died several years ago, her mother ridden by poverty found the girl a burden and agreed to marry off the girl to Bajrang Lal. Though the girl, a student of class IX, kept frequently going on fast protesting the marriage, her uncle became even more stubborn to go ahead with his decision.
Initially, the girl�s family prevented the police from stopping the marriage, and only after the police warned them of the serious consequences of child marriage, they agreed to stop the marriage, the police officer said.
