GUWAHATI:
A total of 2,044 people have been arrested and 4,074 cases have been registered against 8,000 accused persons in a massive drive against child marriage in Assam in the past 48 hours.
Of the arrested people there are 51 priests, including the qazis who were involved in child marriage cases.
The arrests have been made in different police stations under various non-bailable sections of the Indian penal code (IPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
“All these 4,074 incidents of child marriage have taken place across the state from 2020, 2021 and 2022. But the cases have been lodged during the past two days,” Assam director general of police (DGP) GP said addressing a press conference here on Friday evening.
“The maximum number of child marriage cases have been reported from Dhubri, Hojaai, Barpeta, Baksa, Kokrajhar and Biswanath districts,” Singh said.
374 cases have been arrested in Dhubri, 255 in Hojai, 224 in Morigaon, 213 in Udalguri, 204 in Kokrajhar and 192 cases were registered in the Guwahati police commissionerate.
The highest number of arrests have been made in Biswanath (137), followed by Baksa (12) and Barpeta (114).
While arrests mostly included the husbands of minor girls, several Qazis, Imams and Pundits were also picked up for solemnizing child marriages illegally.
Even in the capital city of Guwahati, the city police commissioner held some 53 people for allegedly being involved in child marriages.
Singh said Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had directed the police to carry out a probe into the rising number of child marriage cases across the state based on the inputs he had received in two months back.
“After the directions from the chief minister, all the district SPs were told to get in touch with respective village defence parties, Gaon Buras, chiefs of various communities and prominent people of various communities and based on that we have observed that there are instances of child marriage in various parts of the state,” Singh also said.
“Subsequently, we started collecting data and initially we collected data for 2020, 2021 and 2022. Data has been collected for other years also. Based on this, we have specific instances where cognizable cases were made out and based on that during the last two days, 4,074 cases were registered across different districts of the state,” Singh further said.
“From yesterday, we started taking action based on FIRs that were registered in different districts and till 3 pm today we have arrested 2,044 people from different districts in the state,” the DGP said.
The DGP also said that the arrested persons will be produced before the court.
Earlier, the Assam chief minister said: “State-wide arrests are presently underway against those violating provisions of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. I have asked Assam Police to act with a spirit of zero tolerance against the unpardonable and heinous crime on women.”
Sarma said the crackdown against child marriages in the state would continue in the coming days.
On Thursday, the chief minister said that the state government has launched its war against child marriage intending to wipe out the ‘social evil’ by 2026.
The chief minister also apprehended that over 50,000 child marriages were happening in the state annually leading to a rise in maternal mortality and infant mortality rate.