Marriage knot out : Young Love’s Unfaithful Twist

Marriage knot out : Young Love’s Unfaithful Twist  

Sarita, a 17 years old girl living with her mother and two elder brothers in a small village in Indian state, her elder brother was married and was a teacher in a city. Mother and two brothers farmed the five acres of land owned by a family. Sarita was studying in class 12 in a government school in a neighboring village and had just written her final exams and was waiting for the results.

21 years old Sanjay is blind youth from the same state of Sarita. Coming from a poor family, he joined a school for the blind and continued his education. He became more interested in sports when he reached high school. Seeing this, his master encouraged him to play cricket. Proficient in cricket, sanjay joined state blind cricket team. He performed well there too and become the captain to the state team. He was later selected for the National Team, He also performed well in international matches and became a key player in the Indian team. His financial condition improved. He lived in the capital of his state.

On a holiday, Sanjay went to his relative’s house for a function. There his relatives wife introduced sarita has hers best friend, who lives in a neighboring village.  Both Sarita and Sanjay started to speak. “Why do you have both eyes closed Sarita asked, ‘’ I was not blind, I become blind over time, I can’t see the whole eye at night, it looks blurry in the day time.

He said, “I saw that you are beautiful. Sarita smiled, he told her exciting stories about his past times in different countries of the world, seeing the clothes he wore, his watch etc… Sarita fell in love with him. Both exchanged their mobile numbers. Both of them started talking on the phone every day. After about three months, Sanjay again came to his relative’s house and met Sarita and asked her if she would marry him. She said even if I agree, the family will not agree. So she agreed to Sanjay’s words that we both should go and get married. He said, after one week I will come and call you with vehicle, run away from home. In the evening in the month of July 2021, Sarita left the farm to fetch grass for the cattle and did not return home till eight in the night. Her mother was alarmed and sent her sons to look for her. When the sister was not found even after searching all the night, the information went to elder brother. He came home at night. Searched again in the morning. Sarita was not found. Elder brother went to nearest police station and complained that someone had kidnapped her, the police registered the case and questioned Sarita’s friends. They said that she might have eloped with sanjay. On August 8^th, the police raided Sanjay’s sister’s house and took the young couple into custody. Sanjay told that they both agreed and decided to get married. Then Sarita’s brother gave the documents to the investigator that she was still 17 years old. Sanjay came at night in a car to pick me from the village, from there we went to a hotel in a nearby town and stayed there that night. The next day we went to Sanjay’s sister’s house. We stayed there for four days. At that time Sanjay had sex against my will. “THEN Sanjay took me to his other sister’s house and we stayed there till the police arrived,” Sarita said in front of the female police officers. Both were taken to the government hospital for medical examination. There his physical examination was done and blood samples were taken.

Doctors examined Sarita and found no injuries on her body. There were no signs of forced sex. Doctor said her vaginal fluid and blood samples from both of them were sent to forensic lab for testing, reporting that her hymen was absent. The police also sent Sarita’s underwear and clothes to a laboratory for sperm detection. What was clear at that time was that Sarita is a minor and she engaged in sexual activity. It also proved scientifically that it was Sanjay who raped her. In the meantime, when police asked Sarita, “will you give statement about what happened before the magistrate, she agreed and the next day in the presence of magistrate, she said that Sanjay had raped her believing that he would marry her. This statement was recorded under the section 164 of CrPc.

In the laboratory report, it was found that Sarita’s body fluid contained sperm and a DNA test comparing Sanjay’s blood samples showed that both came from the same body. A charge sheet was filed against Sanjay in the court on charges kidnapping and raping a minor girl.  Sarita defended her earlier statement before the police and magistrate during the court hearing. But in the next interrogation held ten days later, she said she did not know who Sanjay was, that he had not kidnapped her, and that he had not raped her. Thus the prosecution counsel had to re-examine her. Even then she did not reveal anything clearly. As the victim was the most important witness, the judge suspected that she might have acted under someone’s influence.

 In the Court:

The evidence presented was that Sarita was 17 year old and had run away from home. She stayed with Sanjay for about a week. There was physical contact between Sanjay and Sarita. It was undeniable that Sanjay was completely blind. It was debatable whether he could abduct Sarita alone. But his lawyer did not argue about this. Although the judge felt that Sanjay must have taken someone’s help in this whole case in this regards, the police had not collected any evidence in this regard, even though there was a doubt that Sarita may have voluntarily run away with the accused and had sex with him, the court could not but punish Sanjay. Because in the POSCO case, sexual intercourse with a girl against her will is a punishable offence.  Thus the court sentenced Sanjay to 10 years rigorous imprisonment under the POSCO Act for kidnapping and raping Sarita in the belief that he was going to marry her, and sentenced him 3 years rigorous imprisonment for kidnapping.[1]

          Over the last few months there has been increasing noise among people to increase the marriage age for girls from 18 to 21. And some people are raising their voice to decrease the marriage age for girls. They think girls are enough matured to maintain the family. But I think 18 years for girls for marriage is not enough. They are not enough matured to handle the situation. In many situation after early marriage they go for divorce or they have extra marital relationship, then these all causes for different problems in their life. They not only suffer alone they also make to suffer their kids too.

And in many situation parents misusing the law, parents of victim always charges the case under POSCO Act when their girl is minor. Even the parents are aware of the incident that their girl was in relationship or engaged in consensual sexual activity. Many times minor victims change their statement during the course of trail because they feel powerless after much hue and cry. In many cases they don’t have enough maturity what to speak in front of all, they get frightened. So I think Girls marriage age should be increased from 18 to 21. So that even girl will get equal rights as boy.

If Sarita had attained the legal age of 18 years, Sanjay would not have had any problems. Life journey from blindness to extraordinary achievement in sports peaked and plunged back into darkness, is the game of fate.

Share your opinion on increasing the marriage age for girls.

 

 

Reference

1] Dr.D.V Guruprasad, 2023 July 2, “Vivaahabhandhada Badalu Bhandhana”, A Kshana, Vijayavani, Bengaluru, Page No-6

 2] Image from pinterest