Bangalore:
A teenager was roughly taken away by a man, her crying and screaming raised the barren fields. When another man and woman follow, they don’t try to help her. The video from Hosur, Karnataka, is now circulating widely on social media and has led to arrests of all four adults.
The girl is a 14-year-old girl from Thimmathur, a small village in the mountainous area of Thottamanju, near Hosur, Tamil Nadu. She stayed at home after studying at a local school until Level 7 – as often happens in the country’s rural pockets.
But on March 3, her family married her to her Madesh, a 29-year-old worker from Kalikuttai, a mountain village in Karnataka. Her protests were unheard of.
The wedding was held in Bangalore.
After returning to his hometown of Thimmathur, the girl once again expressed dissatisfaction with her marriage and refused to go to her in-laws’ house. She also protested to her parents and relatives.
But her protests turned a deaf ear again. Madesh and his older brother Malsh, 38, forced the girl from their relative’s house to Kalikuttai Village.
Onlookers recorded the visual effects of the kidnapping on their phones and uploaded them on social media, where the virus spread.
The all-female police department in Denkanikottai is now investigating the matter. The girl’s grandmother filed a formal complaint.
Police arrested Medesh, his brother Malishi and the girl’s mother Nagama on Wednesday. Earlier today, two more arrests were made – the girl’s father and Mary Shin’s wife.
The case was filed under various parts of the PF POCSO (Protecting Children from Sexual Crime Act) and the Child Marriage Act. All of them face two years in prison and found that it could be extended to Rs 1 lakh.
The girl is now living with her grandparents.
Marriage of women under the age of 18 is illegal and is deemed invalid in the Child Marriage Act.
The bill also provides penalties for various crimes that allow or marries a minor to an adult. Nevertheless, child marriage is still prevalent nationwide, especially in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.
According to data available from 2023 to 2024, authorities received information on 180 child marriages in Karnataka; 105 such marriages were prevented and in the remaining 75 instances, police cases were registered.
