Child marriage continues in Rajasthan; girl abused and ‘sold’ for 6.3 lakhs, police arrest ‘husband’

Mumbai, July 25: Worried for her safety and the fear of being sold again made a young girl, believed to be 14 years old, to report on her 35-year-old husband. The girl had been physically and sexually abused since the two got ‘married’ in September. The marriage bond was for a sum of Rs 6.3 lakh and the girl was bought from her step mother who had sold her for the third time. The girl was 13 at the time of the proposed marriage.

The Nalla sopara police have arrested the man Lachharam Kriparam Chaudhary and suspect that he could part of a bigger group of human traffickers.

The girl narrated that she was sold by her stepmother Shanti who managed to get notarized documents claiming the girl to be 20 years old in an attempt to hoodwink the law. Police sources said that Shanti had traded her stepchild twice earlier, for Rs 50,000 the first time and then later again for Rs 5.80 lakh. When Chaudhary offered Rs 6.3 lakh for her, she spent no time contemplating the deal.

Upon interrogation Chaudhary confessed to the cops that minors in his state are routinely sold as spouses, abused sexually and then resold in other states.

“Some stay married, while many resell their child-wives for a good sum. I had also purchased her for Rs 6.3 lakh and then married her,” Chaudhary said, adding that affidavits are made up to keep up the appearance of legitimacy. The police said they will investigate his claims and see how far and deep the trail spreads out.

Apart from inflicting physical and sexual abuses and torture the girl was allegedly also kept in confinement within a small room and never allowed to go out. Over-hearing a conversation where Chaudhary spoke of selling someone for 15 lakhs frightened the girl who, worried that she might be sold off again, made her way from their conjugal house in Nalla sopara for the police station.

Tulinj police inspector Kailash Barve said that reports have come from the hospital which confirmed the age of the girl as 14 years. “We have arrested her husband and booked him for rape under various provisions of the law,” he said.

Chaudhary has been booked under sections 376 (rape), 366A (procuring a minor girl), 342 (wrongful confinement), 372 (selling a minor for prostitution), 373 (buying a minor for prostitution), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 34 (common intent) and under sections 4, 8, and 12 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO).