Minor girl from Pune forced married in Punjab

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A 13-year-old girl from Lohegaon was taken to Punjab under pretext of giving job and married off to much older man there. The girl is yet to be rescued. Police are investigating if she was trafficked there as part any racket as male-female sex ratio is very low in Punjab and it is difficult to find local brides.

The 35-year-old mother of the girl has lodged a complaint with Vimantal police station against victim girl’s maternal uncle Nandu Sakhare and his wife Chhaya Sakhare, who are residents of Burma Cell locality of Lohegaon. Their daughter is married to a man in Hoshiarpur, Punjab.

According to Pune city police, the victim’s mother is Sakhre’s sister. After the death of her husband few years ago, she remarried and lived in Ahmednagar district. But he divorced her and she came here with her daughter and son. She lived in a slum in Yerwada and worked as housemaid to sustain the family. When the offer of good job for herself and her daughter came from her brother, she didn’t suspect anything fishy.

Police said that the mother and daughter were to Kandhalian village in Dasuya tehsil of Hoshiarpur district in Punjab in the first week of July. About 15 days back, the minor girl was forcefully married to a 21-year-old labourer named Gurjit. The mother somehow returned to Pune and with the help of a social worker lodged police complaint.

Senior Police Inspector Sanjay Kurundkar, in-charge of Vimantal police station, said, “We have sent a team to Punjab to rescue the girl.”

Police have registered FIR against accused for offences under sections 366 (kidnapping or inducing woman to compel her marriage) 366A (procuration of minor girl to go from any place or to do any act with intent that such girl be forced to illicit intercourse with another person) of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act.

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