On Sunday evening, the control room officials at Kalaburagi in Karnataka recieved a frantic call from a Class 7 girl student, seeking intervention to stop her Gujjar marriage.
The girl said that she was forcibly brought from Surpur town of Yadgir to Narboli village of Jewargi taluk of Kalaburagi on 16 December so that she could participate in pre-marriage rituals, according to a report in The New Indian Express.
The matter was referred to the Child Development Project officer and later to the Child Protection unit of the Women and Child Welfare Department.
When District Child Protection officer CV Raman rushed to Narboli to meet her, the girl informed the officer that she was to wed a 26-year-old Gujarati youth, named Devaraj, at Diggavi.
She revealed that her mother, maternal uncles and aunt had been involved in arranging the marriage.
After the child’s maternal uncle Suryakant was taken into custody, he named Nagamma of Diggavi village, as the mediator of the marriage.
After raiding Nagamma’s house with the help of the police, the woman, along with her husband Bombay Gopal, sister Ratna and her husband Vijay Solanke were arrested for arranging the marriage.
The child was then admitted to the Children’s Home for Girls, states the report.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)