Child marriage racket in Faridabad busted; 2 women among 3 arrested
Rajesh Kumar, DSP with the chief minister’s flying squad, said the suspects would approach elderly men and their family members who were unable to get married
Faridabad police arrested three members of a gang who allegedly arranged marriages between minors and adult men for money, authorities said on Tuesday.
Police said a joint team of the chief minister’s flying squad, district child welfare committee and Nav Prayas, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), raided a house and caught the gang members red-handed when they were preparing the wedding rituals of a 14-year-old girl with a 40-year-old man in Faridabad’s Sector 58 on Monday.
The suspects were identified as Asha Devi, her sister-in-law Seema Kumari and Anil Kumar, the groom from Rajiv Colony in Sector 58.
Police said on Monday they received a tip-off from Sunil Yadav, a member of the child welfare committee, who said that a gang was actively involved in getting elderly men, widowers or divorcees married to minors who belong to economically weaker backgrounds.
They also charged between ₹1 lakh and ₹2.5 lakh for arranging the nuptials, officers said.
Rajesh Kumar, deputy superintendent of police with the chief minister’s flying squad, said the suspects would approach elderly men and their family members who were unable to get married. “The suspects were running this racket for the last three years. Asha was the kingpin of the gang and was also involved in illegal liquor smuggling. She had built a network across Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh,” he said.
DSP Kumar said Asha would lure family members of minors from poverty-stricken families. “They would call priests for conducting wedding rituals and often forged the identification documents of minors and tampered with their age. The gang members also used to ask family members to send minors to their house for grooming and later forced them to have sex with multiple men. The suspects threatened the victims,” he said.
Police said the gang has already got more than 50 minor girls married.
On Monday, a minor girl approached the child welfare committee and told them that she had been tricked into a marriage and delivered a baby at the age of 15. She said she was taken to Sector 58, where she was forced to marry a 40-year-old man, police said.
The girl alleged that she had been sold to the man for ₹60,000 and he had raped her and kept her confined until she managed to escape.
She gave them details about the racket and police raided the house and rescued a minor who had been brought from Uttar Pradesh, police added.
Upon investigation, police found that the racket was being run by three persons who would lure girls and women in the pretext of finding a marital match for them. Once the girls arrived in Faridabad, they were sold as wives to men.
During questioning, the suspects revealed that they were involved in the illegal trade for the last three years and had organised more than 60 weddings and charged around ₹1.5 lakh from each groom. They used to target men who had lost their wives or were not getting a bride, officers said.
DSP Kumar said, “The minors have complained that they were raped by family members of Asha and Seema”.
A case has been registered against the gang members under sections 16, 17 and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, Section 81 of the Juvenile Justice Act and sections 120B, 420, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at Sector 58 police station on Monday.
Mukesh Malhotra, deputy commissioner of police (crime), said that they have launched a probe in the matter. “We are questioning the suspects, their family members and others to know more about the gang’s modus operandi. More arrests are likely soon,” he said.
