In the Indian state of Assam, the police have arrested 2500 men and their relatives who have married girls under the age of 18 during the last two years.
According to the report of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the arrested persons include the husbands of the minor girls, their relatives, the marriage judges, pundits and their assistants.
It should be remembered that for marriage in India legally the age of a girl must be 18 years and a boy must be 21 years. The Chief Minister of the state has said that this campaign against the marriage of minor children and girls will continue.
The state government has started this campaign after collecting the data of marriages and pregnant women for two years. According to the report, 4 thousand FIRs have been registered in this regard. The police had arrested 2500 people from last Friday to Monday afternoon.
The state government has released the statistics of pregnant women in Assam during the year 2022 according to which 620 thousand women became pregnant in the state from January to December 2022. Among them, 1 lakh 4 thousand women i.e. about 17 percent were women whose age was less than 19 years.
State Chief Minister Hemant Biswa Sharma while talking to reporters said that the law to stop child marriage was passed in Parliament in 2006 but not enough attention was paid to it.
According to the report, most of the 2,500 people who have been arrested are Muslims. Explaining this, Hemant Biswa Sharma said that this is a neutral action. It does not target any particular community.