Noida: The illegal marriage of a 14-year-old girl has brought under scrutiny the roles of officials handling marriage registries, police and the man – a 23-year-old – with whom she eloped for forgery, change of identity, and alleged illegal confinement at a Noida police station for three days.
However, it’s the minor who is facing the rough end of the stick.
The girl, who is Muslim, and the 23-year-old, a Hindu, live in the same neighbourhood in Noida and had been seeing each other for a few months. On the night of October 7, they left for Varanasi to get married, because they did not see their families consenting to their relationship.
The girl carried with her Rs 30,000 in cash, which she took from the house.
They reached Varanasi by bus. A day later, they were back in NCR, this time in Ghaziabad, at the marriage registrar’s office.
She was 20 years old now. Her name had changed to Shivani. She had an Aadhaar card too. But it passed muster, and they got their marriage registered.
A conversion certificate had also been prepared for her by a lawyer.
In the temple town, the girl said her boyfriend took her to an Arya Samaj mandir where they got married. She said her boyfriend knew a lawyer, Kapil, who had helped forged her documents.
“He had also called two friends, but they refused to be witnesses, saying they could get arrested. After that, I was asked to sign a document and my name was changed to Shivani. I was made to tear my Aadhaar card and told that from now, I have to say I was born in 2000,” she told TOI.
In the meantime, her family has complained to the police. The cops tracked the couple down at Ghaziabad bus stand. The man managed to flee.
The girl was taken to Chhijarsi police chowki in Noida where, she alleged, sub-inspector Gopal Awasthi slapped her twice.
“He slapped me and told me not to mention that I went to Varanasi. The SI told me that I should say I went of my own will. A lady constable said they would write what I said but he insisted I should say what he told me to,” the girl told this correspondent, adding that she was not allowed to leave the police station for three days.
Initially, she alleged, no one was allowed to meet her.
“Later, they let only my mother meet me,” she said.
Satya Prakash, manager of FXB-Suraksha that runs Childline in Noida, said that keeping a minor at a police station for three days was a gross violation of child rights. “The child should have been handed over to the child welfare committee (CWC) and kept at a shelter home,” he said.
Vrinda Shukla, the DCP (women’s safety), told TOI that the man who the girl had eloped with – a sanitation worker – was arrested on October 16 and the girl was handed over to her parents as she said in her statement she wanted to be with them. DCP (central Noida) Harish Chander said that the role of cops would be probed.
He said the officials at the registry office should have taken the girl’s statement.
Sub registrar Raghuvir Singh said that the registry was done on the basis of documents attached with the application.
Documents accessed by TOI, including the girl’s original Aadhaar card, birth certificate and school documents, show her date of birth to be June 13, 2006.
In the document papers submitted to register the marriage, her date of birth is June 13, 2000.