Assam’s Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, said on Thursday that arrests will start to be made in the more than 4,000 cases of child marriage that have been reported in the state in the last nine days.
He stated that those who engaged in child marriages in the past seven years will be retroactively charged by the police, and the attention will be particularly on “mullahs, kazis, and pujaris” who organise these marriages. He added that this would be done in order to protect children.
Assam Govt is firm in its resolve to end the menace of child marriage in the state.
So far @assampolice has registered 4,004 cases across the state and more police action is likely in days ahead. Action on the cases will begin starting February 3. I request all to cooperate. pic.twitter.com/JH2GTVLhKJ
— Himanta Biswa Sarma (Modi Ka Parivar) (@himantabiswa) February 2, 2023
Sarma had announced on January 23 that the government of Assam will launch a statewide drive against child marriage. Men who marry girls younger than 14 years of age will be booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act, and those who marry girls aged 14–18 will be booked under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act.
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Since the announcement, the Assam Police have filed 4,004 cases across the state alleging that minors were married off against their will. According to the Chief Minister, the investigation into these instances will commence on Friday.
“Within the past nine days, thus many cases have been registered; by tomorrow, this figure might have surpassed 8,000 or 9,000.” On Friday, we will start making arrests and taking further action. People will be gathered from various locations throughout the state. It will be a very significant action… All of the individuals who have been involved in child marriage in any capacity over the course of the last seven years will be booked retroactively. It is the mullahs, kazis, and pujaris who promote these weddings, and they will be our primary targets, as he explained.
The district of Dhubri has the highest number of instances out of the 4,004 that he mentioned; there have been 370 of them registered there. Following this, 255 is the next highest number in Hojai, then 224 in Morigaon, 204 in Kokrajhar, and 171 in Nalbari.
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Sarma reaffirmed his earlier statement that the crackdown would not be directed toward any specific community, despite the fact that Dhubri and Morigaon are districts with significant Muslim populations, as are Hojai and Nalbari, and despite the fact that both of these places have Muslim majority districts. He said that everyone, no matter their caste, creed, or religion, would be taken to court.
The high rates of maternal and infant mortality in the state, which the administration has linked to early motherhood, are the declared target of the government’s effort, and the stated goal of the drive is to address those rates. According to statistics that were made public by the Registrar General of India in 2022, the state of Assam has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, with 195 fatalities per 1 lakh live births in 2018–2020. This is the highest rate in the country. Assam has the third highest infant mortality rate in the country, according to the National Family Health Survey-5, with 32 deaths per 1,000 live births. This places Assam in third place.
