Gujarat: 'Sold daughter to feed 3 kids'
AHMEDABAD: Continuing probe of the child-bride (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/child-bride) sale incident, a video
of which had gone viral pushing the social justice department to act, has revealed that the 10-year-old’s father was a jobless
labourer. His desperation for money to feed his family was exploited by a village agent who arranged a ‘marriage’ of his
daughter, against Rs 50,000, to a 37-year-old Ahmedabad man. A team from Ahmedabad city women’s crime branch had on
Tuesday raided a house in Asarwa, rescued the girl and sent her to a women’s protection home in Odhav. Hadad police is
probing the case under prevention of child marriage (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/child-marriage) act, as the illegal
marriage took place under their jurisdiction in Kehrmal village of Danta taluka. However the minor’s rape and crimes attracting
provisions of POCSO took place at Asarwa, Ahmedabad, at the residence of the man who’d ‘bought’ the girl.
Manish Joshi, child marriage prevention officer and in-charge social justice district officer, who filed the FIR in the matter at
Hadad police station said that the child’s father was clueless about laws against child marriage prevention, and had made no
attempt to hide his part in the crime. “When we showed the video of the marriage to the girl’s father, he immediately identified
her and said she was his daughter and she had been sold in marriage for Rs 50,000,” Joshi said.
“The girl’s father is extremely poor and had run out of money to feed his kids. He fell in
the trap of a village-based agent who offered him Rs 50,000 to give his 10-year-old
daughter in marriage against Rs 50,000,” Joshi added.
A police officer said the girl’s father, a liquor addict, had been unable to find work for the past three to four months. Under the
circumstances, the deal offered by Jagmal Gamar seemed to him a stroke of luck that could save his family. So he gave the
child in illegal marriage to Govind Thakor, resident of Asarwa
a