The Child Welfare Committee, Juvenile Justice, has asked the police to strengthen the case filed against an Arab and a few others in Malappuram and Kozhikode in connection with the marriage and abuse of a 17-year-old girl.
The police here on Monday registered a case with crime no. 698 under IPC Section 376 for rape, 498-A for torture from husband, Section 23 of the Juvenile Justice Act, Sections 7 and 8 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, and Sections 9, 10, 11, and 16 of the Protection of Children Marriage Act.
After examining the FIR made available to it on Tuesday, the Child Welfare Committee asked the police to use Sections 5 and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, instead of Sections 7 and 8.
Child Welfare Committee member Najmal Babu said that Sections 7 and 8 were weak compared to Sections 5 and 6. When Sections 7 and 8 offered a punishment of five years in prison, Sections 5 and 6 offered 10 years of rigorous imprisonment.
The police registered the case in the wake of a directive issued by the State Human Rights Commission and the Child Welfare Committee, who were approached by the girl after she was abandoned by UAE citizen Jasim Mohammed Abdul Kareem. The girl, according to her complaint, was given in marriage to the Arab without her consent.
After three weeks of “physical and mental abuse,” the Arab with whom she could not communicate as she did not know English or Arabic, abandoned her.
She alleged that the officials of an orphanage in Kozhikode, where she lived, had compelled her to marry Kareem.
