Dad of 3 faces jail for eloping with wife when she was minor

Nagpur: A 27-year-old man, father of three daughters, is now set to go jail and also possibly face a conviction for having eloped with a woman, now his wife, in 2015 when she was 15 years old.
The couple had their first baby in 2017 when she was 17 years old. The woman was brought back from Rajasthan on March 19 eight years after a complaint was lodged by her father.
On Tuesday, a complex family drama was played out at Wadi police station where the woman, now aged 23, questioned the cops on her being ‘rescued’ by the anti-human trafficking unit (AHU) especially as she was happily married. Her father had registered the case at Wadi police station in May 2015.
The woman threatened to consume poison if her husband faced police action.
Police sources said she was also upset with her father persisting with the complaint and insisting on being brought back which, she said, had shattered her dream of a happy family life.
The father, who had even approached the high court for justice, then wanted the cops to forgive his son-in-law and was willing to withdraw the case. He wanted the case to be ‘settled’ without action.
City police chief Amitesh Kumar was sympathetic to the family but said he had to follow the law as the case was serious. “Going by the year of the first child's birth in 2017, the case attracts provisions of rape and protection of children from sexual offences Act too, which are serious in nature,” said the CP.
“Though it's a sensitive issue, police would follow the rule book procedure of arrests, seek police custody remand and also go for DNA profiling tests,” said Kumar.
On the suicide threat by the woman, Kumar said he has issued the necessary guidance and instructed the copy on the legal measures. “The woman would be handed over to her father as she was a minor when the case was registered,” he said.
The AHU, led by assistant police inspector Rekha Sankhpal, had brought the woman back with her three daughters, the youngest being nine months old.
The woman escaped from home at the age of 15 after failing in Standard VIII and landed at a relative's place in Patna. She subsequently eloped with her husband from Patna and reached Rajasthan. The couple tied the knot and soon settled down. The man worked at a salt pan.
Following the complaint by the father, the case was transferred to the AHU in 2016 and had been pending since then. The rescue was prompted after CP undertook a pendancy-clearing drive in the city.
The AHU unit, which was working on the case on the basis of call details records and mobile tower locations, got a vital clue after the woman tried to prepare her Aadhaar card in her maiden name which generates a one-time password on a cellphone number she had furnished. The cops found the tower location of the cellphone and zeroed on the woman and her husband.