E-Paper
916 held in fresh crackdown on child marriages in Assam
At least 706 cases have been registered in the second phase and 1,041 peoplehave been booked under the Prohibition of Child Marriage (PCMA) Act and Pocso Act
The Assam government resumed it’s crackdown on child marriage, arresting over a thousand people from across the state on Tuesday, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
“In a massive crackdown against child marriage, Assam Police has arrested over 800 accused persons in a special operation which began in the early hours of dawn,” Sarma on Tuesday morning wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “The number of arrests is likely to rise.”
At 1pm, he updated the numbers in another post. ”The number now stands at 1,039,” he posted. The police, however confirmed later in the evening that out of the total 1,039, 916 were arrested by the end of the day.
At least 706 cases have been registered in the second phase and 1,041 peoplehave been booked under the Prohibition of Child Marriage (PCMA) Act and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, police said.
Of those arrested, 551 were husbands of the minor brides, 351 were relatives and 14 are solemnisers of the child marriages. With 192 arrests, Dhubri topped list, followed by Barpeta with 142. Dima Hasao remained the district with the lowest arrests as only one person was apprehended.
“We have to stop the scourge of child marriage in Assam,” said state police chief Gyanendra Pratap Singh. “Till such time that this comes to a complete halt, our action shall continue.”
Sarma in January announced that the state government would launch a drive against child marriage. Police registered 4,244 cases in the first phase of the mass arrests that started in the first week of February. Husbands and other family members of minor girls were arrested.
For the second phase, police started registering cases in September and investigations followed. “We have the details of the accused persons and warrants to arrest them, a police officer said, declining to be named. “Our teams started picking them up from Monday midnight.”
Last month, Sarma announced that the second phase would begin from September. In the second phase, at least three thousand persons will be arrested, the chief minister had said.
Attending the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Mahila Morcha national executive meeting in Guwahati on September 10, Sarma said the state government was waiting for the G20 summit to get over. “We were just waiting for the G20 Summit to end. In the next 10 days, our police will arrest at two to three thousand husbands who have married minor girls,” he had said.
In some communities, girls are married off at the age of nine and were forced to get pregnant by 12, he had claimed. “In that community, men are marrying multiple girls at their early ages and I don’t know if they ever feel ashamed,” he said.
In August, Sarma had said the government will crackdown on child marriages every six months till 2026. The state government is bringing in a draft legislation to ban polygamy. “We won’t allow multiple marriages because our sisters suffer due to this. By December, the law will ban this legally,” the chief minister said.
During the first phase, several deaths by suicide took place and family members of the deceased allege that fear of getting arrested was the reason. Police deny the allegations.
