GUWAHATI
Altogether 2,441 people have been arrested since the drive against child marriage was launched in Assam on February 2, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on February 6.
“The drive against those violating the provisions of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act of 2006 will continue,” he said.
“I have asked the Assam police to act with a spirit of zero tolerance against the unpardonable and heinous crime on women,” he had hours after the drive was launched.
Assam’s Director-General of Police Gyanendra Pratap Singh said the crackdown followed a direction from the Chief Minister two months ago based on inputs that child marriage was rampant in parts of the State.
“The superintendents of police of every district were told to get in touch with village elders, chiefs of various communities and village defence personnel to find out about such cases in the State,” he said.
The police collected data for three years from 2020 and registered 4,074 cases across the districts. On the first day of the crackdown, the police arrested 2,044 people, including 52 priests, qazis and others responsible for conducting child marriages.
Most of the arrests have been made in Biswanath, Dhubri, Barpeta, Kokrajhar and Baksa districts. The Opposition parties have cried foul, calling the drive a political gimmick to divert attention from key issues.
“The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act is a central piece of law whose rules have to be framed by the State. The crackdown is being carried out without the framing of the rules,” All India United Democratic Front general secretary Aminul Islam said.
The State Congress called the drive a “farce” and was undertaken without proper inquiry or following procedure.
Survey-based drive
The Assam Cabinet approved the crackdown on child marriages on January 23. The decision was based on the National Family Health Survey-5 conducted in 2019 and 2020, which showed that the percentage of women aged 20-24 years who were married before the legal age of 18 years in Assam was 31.8% against the national figure of 23.3%.
The survey also revealed 11.7% of women in Assam aged 15-19 years who were married were already mothers or pregnant during the period of the survey, compared to the national figure of 6.8%.
The National Family Health Survey-4 carried out in 2015 and 2016 said the percentage of child marriage in Assam was 30.8%, exactly 4% more than the national average and the percentage of women aged 15-19 years who were mothers or pregnant was 13.6% against the national figure of 7.9%.
