Climbing over restricted walls

Almost every day for the past few years, muddy winding roads leading to a farmhouse in the village of Sajanpura are surrounded by 12-foot brick walls, which will sound DJs and bands. Baaraat (The groom joins the parade and takes the bride). The farmhouse is where the NGO Gayatri Sarv Samaj Foundation is located. But residents recalled that music and joy were almost always accompanied by an unhappy bride.

April 6, Dhol (Drum) With the help of Sahiba, 40, (name changed to protect identity), the whole day extends until she reaches a stranger who helps her to reach the closest police station in Bassi, Rajasthan, when Neelam, 17, stopped echoing through the village with the help of Sahiba, 40.

Next were raids and four arrests. Neelam is now escorted back to her hometown in Uttar Pradesh, where she lives in her sanctuary. Sahiba is awaiting her journey back to West Bengal in a gathering place in Rajasthan.

When she arrived at the station, Neelam, from the regular caste (SC) community, told police that she was kidnapped and sold to a man to marry.

After her abuse, the man brought her back to the NGO where she was “death threatened”. Panic, she ran away.

Sahiba was trafficked by Howrah of West Bengal and sold to NGOs by an acquaintance Vijay. When she told her story, she said that after “buying” she was considered “not married” by the organization’s head for her “height and skin color.” Then, they tortured her for a year because “they gave it for me.”

Widow Sahiba’s troubled Black Dupatta covers her head, saying she has no interest in marriages in succession, and it’s a promise of a job that has kept her spread all over her nation. “I used to beg in the street, so when an acquaintance told me he would find a job that would pay Rs 20,000 in Jaipur, I didn’t tell anyone. [the organisation head and after whom the organisation has been named]. Here I was forced to do housework and was beaten every day after they said they couldn’t get me married. ”

Marriage Market

Not far from Sajanpura, about 30 kilometers from the center of Jaipur, IPS (probation) officials investigated at the Brazilian police station. Assam prices range from Rs 250,000 to Rs 5 lakh, “selling marriages to older people” in western Rajasthan. He said the price of a bride will depend on the girl’s physical attributes.

“After inquiry, we found that the Gayatri Sarv Samaj Foundation has been operated as a NGO from the farmhouse premises over the past eight years. It forged the age certificates of underage girls and sold them in their marriages. They have had at least 1,500 marriages.”

The first information report (FIR) was filed at the Brazilian police station in Jaipur on April 7, and a joint investigation by UP and Rajasthan police was launched after Neelam’s complaint. Neelam is the only minor so far and his marriage has been invalid. In addition to the sections of the Protective Children from Sexual Crime (POCSO) Act and the Child Marriage Act 2006, the sections under the BNS related to kidnapping, criminal conspiracy, rape and unlawful detention are also included in the FIR.

Four people related to the organization have been arrested. Police are looking for a man who married Nealham and traffickers. They have been focusing on more girls and women who are married under similar conditions.

Sources said at least five FIRs have been sent to nonprofits at various stations in Jaipur in the past nine years, but have taken no action against them.

Under the 2012 POCSO Act, any marital relationship between a man and a girl aged 15 to 18 is invalid. But, Patil said police can only act on cases they know about. Residents complained about more such marriages, and police said they were working to identify them.

As many as 3,098 girls (under 18) were rescued in 2022 during trafficking in India, according to the National Crime Records Agency.

Missing daughter

About 500 kilometers away, Neelam’s mother, 32, returned home one night and found her daughter missing on March 29.

Neelam said her neighbor asked her to go to the market with her, so she sat in his car with him. She complained: “On the way, he gave me panes and barbecue. After that, I lost the ability to think; only my body was moving. He left me in the temple.” After being forced to get married and brought to Sikar in Rajasthan, she fought with the groom’s family and told her to walk away, but the man left her in the farmhouse. Gayatri told her here that she “buyed her” for Rs 1.3 lakh and “selled her” for Rs 2.5 lakh.

When she said she received a call from an unknown number, her mother’s voice trembled and realized it was her Betia (daughter). “She gave Gayatri the phone and if we wanted our daughter to come back he asked us to pay Rs 2.5 lakh. But we don’t have that kind of money.” She worked as a laborer and her husband was out of work.

Neelam ran away when she heard two other men take her away. Her mother now says in the shelter: “She doesn’t say much, but she cries when she sees me.”

Sahiba was rescued the next day. She told police what she knew about the organization. She worried that her son would look for her in her 20s.

Escape

Sahia recalls the morning incident and run away, “She looks frustrated and I don’t want her to go through what I do. I told her, ‘I know you want to escape. Run. Run, I’ll help you.”

The next morning, she distracted Gayatri by having a conversation in a corner of the farmhouse. Neelam, who pretended to go to the bathroom, climbed up the brick wall and escaped. Next is a savage chase with Gayatri, two accomplices chasing her in her car. She told police she ran through the vast fields where cars could not be followed.

That day, Neelam’s mother received a call from an unknown number and immediately answered it. “That’s my daughter. She ran away and hid in another man’s house. She called me from his phone. I was helpless and asked him to take her to the police station.” Neelam said in her memories of her mother that she was wearing it for the red sari at the wedding and she left when she ran away.

Neelam’s statement was recorded on the evening of April 6. On April 7, a raid was carried out and arrested. Police have retried the car used to chase Neelam and frozen the bank accounts of staff of the organization. They also identified six trafficking agents who were working to arrest them.

Hiding behind the poor “kanyadaan”

Gayatri Sarv Samaj Foundation says they performed Kanyadaan The family can’t afford the wedding daughter. They said in a 2020 social media post that they have been in a massive marriage. Photos show young women wearing bright red wedding lehengas decorations, their hands covered with bracelets, looking lonely.

In their posts, they showcase weddings for most couples from superior families. However, according to police, they target people from the lower classes, many of whom happen to be from the SC and ST communities. In the case of Neelam, the 1989 booked caste and booked tribe (prevention of atrocities) part has not been summoned to her married person herself belonging to the SC community.

According to the catalogue of government think tank NITI AAYOG, the foundation conducted a nonprofit registration under Section 8 of the Company Act in 2016. Article 8 of the Company Law of 2013. Registered in accordance with this section when it has the protection of arts, commerce, education, charity, protection of the environment, social welfare and religion, business, education, charity, protection of the environment, charity, protection of the environment, society, social welfare and religion.

In 2016, three innings were sent in the police station in Jaipur based on sections related to cheating and dishonestness, crimes against trust, personality cheating, voluntary damage and unlawful restrictions. These complaints were filed by the groom’s family, mainly after the bride escaped, as the man thought he had been cheated.

Sahiba is trafficked by Howrah, West Bengal. She was deceived by an acquaintance who promised her a job in Jaipur. |Picture source: Moorthy RV

Chennai-based advocate David Sunder Singh said men who marry women can also be linked to Pocso under the leadership of POCSO.

“If the woman is a minor, it is the responsibility of the state to rescue them. If the adult also says that she was forcibly married as a child, the part involving Pocso will be invoked and the marriage will be invalid.” However, if the adult agrees to the marriage and the law enforcement agency believes there is no apparent exploitation, the case will not be registered. He noted that other parts related to rape, trafficking and cheating could be included.

Possible Contributors of Crime

In Sajanpura, women are rarely seen on the road, and residents living near farmhouses say they often see marriages happening behind grilled iron doors and brick walls. “They sell brides probably because many of our villages have fewer women,” said school principal Om Prakash Sharma. He said men would travel through villages and find brides here, and some people started families as well.

According to the National Family Health Survey 5-5, the gender ratio in Rajasthan was 882 in rural areas at birth (per 1,000 men) and 869 from 2017 to 2017. This is much lower than that of the country’s gender ratios in rural and urban areas, at 1,037 and 985, respectively.

Dr Sunil Chugh, National Vice President of the Indian Medical Association, said the board outside the Diagnostic Centre outside the Diagnostic Centre noted that they did require sexual selection tests as he operates hospitals and 32 diagnostic centres in Rajasthan and Bihar. He said his unit told people it was a crime. “We said, ‘Do you want us to call the police?'”

While preconcept and prenatal diagnostic techniques in 1994 (prohibiting gender selection) punish violators, thus reducing the pathways for people to terminate pregnancy, Dr. Chugh noted that there is little “mind change.” Apart from that, he said it is well known that many communities in Rajasthan can practice infanticide in women.

“For years, I noticed that in the hospital, there were a lot of celebrations when a boy was born, but when a girl was born, parents often felt upset. They started to worry about dowry from birth,” he said.

But for Neelam and Sahiba, a planned act of courage helped them out of the cycle. Neelam, who recently completed Level 12, told her mother that when she met her at her home in the shelter, she still wanted to go to college, either to try to turn to civil servants or become a doctor.

Meanwhile, Sahiba said in a mix of Hindi and Bengali, “It’s a wall, but the girl is tall.” She smiled.

ashna.butani@thehindu.co.in

Edited by Sunalini Mathew