SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Hyderabad: People have been trying different ways to perform the marriage of their girl child, though they know very well that it is illegal and punishable in the courts of law. One such incident happened in Jogulamba Gadwal district on Wednesday, April 22.
According to Jogulamba Gadwal Childline Coordinator Shivaleela, they received an anonymous call on Wednesday, informing them about a child marriage being performed by a family in Kondapalli village of Gadwal mandal.
She, along with the district child protection unit and police personnel, reached the village and tried to locate the house where the marriage was being performed.
“None of the villagers was cooperative. In fact, they gathered in large numbers at the house where the child marriage was being performed. The family members and their relatives kept arguing with us, claiming that it was not a marriage that was happening at their house, but a coming-of-age ceremony of their daughter,” Shivaleela told Siasat.com.
Amid the chaos, the Sarpanch of the village was called, and the so-called bride’s parents produced a girl before the officials, claiming she was the bride they were searching for.
The officials took the girl and produced her before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC). During the conversation, they realised that the girl was the younger sister of the actual bride.
Meanwhile, the parents allegedly performed the marriage of the actual bride with the bridegroom, who is an adult.
The officials realised their goof-up and went to the house in search of the bride, who had gone missing by then. The additional superintendent of police, three sub-inspectors and constables went to the bridegroom’s house to capture the couple at Obulonipally village of Dharoor mandal.
Even after waiting for the entire night, the escaped couple weren’t found.
Based on the complaint, a first information report (FIR) was registered at Gadwal Rural Police Station on Friday, April 24. However, according to the Gadwal Circle Inspector, there was still no evidence, like a wedding card, a photograph or something, that could prove that a child marriage was performed at that house.
“Every time we go to stop child marriage, we ascertain the date of birth of the victim from the Aadhar card or birth certificate available in the village’s school. Even in this case, we found that the bride was born in 2010 and had just written her Class 10 exams. It also happens that the name in the school and the name used in the village could be different. This was how the bride’s family tricked us,” Shivaleela told Siasat.com, reflecting on the ground reality and challenges in stopping child marriages.
The officer also said that the victim belongs to a poor family with three daughters, among whom the elder daughter is married, the second daughter was the alleged bride, and the younger one was the one produced by them before the CWC.
She said the victim belonged to a very poor family of Mudirajus, and that the father of the victim is a driver of a dozer machine.
It is pertinent to mention that about five per cent or 2.16 lakh girls below 18 years of age have been found to have married in Telangana, according to the caste survey conducted by the Congress government in 2024-25.
Nearly two-thirds of all women in Telangana have not progressed past secondary education, according to the Telangana Socio-Economic, Educational, Employment, Political and Caste (SEEEPC) Survey-2024.
It needs no mention that several parts of the Gadwal district are the most backward in terms of education, where child labour and child marriages run parallel.
SOURCE : SIASAT
