INDORE: The Rau police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) against 13 people for orchestrating a forced child marriage in Indore’s Rangwasa area. The accused include a 42-year-old groom and the grandparents of a 13-year-old girl.
Investigation officers uncovered a bizarre contractual arrangement driven by deep social pressure. Officials from the Women and Child Development Department explained that the elderly grandparents desperately wanted a bride for their 19-year-old grandson. However, the prospective bride set a strict condition. She agreed to marry the grandson only if her 42-year-old maternal uncle could marry his 13-year-old sister.
To secure the grandson’s wedding, the grandparents accepted the deal. In doing so, they effectively traded away their minor granddaughter.
Local child protection authorities had received early tips about the wedding, which the families originally planned for April 25. A flying squad from the department intercepted both families. The squad counselled them and secured a written promise that the marriage would not take place.
However, the groom’s family defied the administrative warning. They arrived in Indore on the night of April 26 and secretly moved the minor girl and her 19-year-old brother to the neighboring holy city of Ujjain.
The families conducted the weddings in the dead of night outside the Chintaman Ganesh temple. After the rituals, the minor girl and her brother returned to their grandparents’ home in Rangwasa. Meanwhile, the 42-year-old groom went back to his native village in the Sanwer tehsil without the bride.
The conspiracy came to light after the 13-year-old girl resisted continuous family pressure to live with the middle-aged man. When she refused, the grandmother allegedly assaulted her brutally.
This physical abuse prompted the girl’s biological mother to take action. The mother, who lives separately following the death of the children’s father and her own remarriage, filed a formal written complaint with the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).
“We have recorded the minor’s statement under standard legal procedures, which completely exposed the premeditated conspiracy,” a senior child protection official stated.
The administrative probe also revealed that both families systematically altered school report cards and birth records. They did this to forge fake age certificates for the minors.
The police have booked the 13 accused under relevant sections of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Senior officials stated that the Education Department is running a parallel inquiry into the forged academic documents. The police will add supplementary charges for forgery and counterfeiting government records once they receive the final verification report.
