A break-up of data on arrests which had taken place till 7:30 pm on Monday shows that a total of 2,442 people had been arrested till then, of which 78 of the arrested are women.
According to Assam Inspector General (Law & Order) Prasanta Kumar Bhuyan, the women arrested are those who have been identified as people who “facilitated” child marriages.
Police arrest men allegedly involved in child marriages, during Assam government’s statewide crackdown on child marriages, in Guwahati (PTI)
“These kinds of arrests of relatives or third parties have not been done in all cases. It has been done in cases where during the course of investigation, some evidence came out of them facilitating it,” he said.
According to the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006, any person in charge of the child “who does any act to promote the marriage or permits it to be solemnised, or negligently fails to prevent it from being solemnised, including attending or participating in a child marriage” shall be punishable with rigorous punishment with the caveat that “no woman shall be punishable with imprisonment”.
However, according to Delhi-based advocate Lakshya Dheer, this does not limit the power of police to make arrests.
“As per Section 15, the offences under the child marriage act are cognizable and non-bailable which means that the accused persons (whether it is a woman or not) maybe arrested without a warrant and have to seek bail from the court. The safeguards and procedures under Chapter 5 of the CrPC have to be adhered to for arrest. The guidelines as laid down by the Apex Court in Arnesh Kumar vs State of Bihar(2014)have to be followed especially when the offence is punishable with imprisonment less than seven years, in which case, the arrest has to be an exception rather than the norm. Hence, the proviso under Section 11(1) is merely restricted to the punishment meted out after trial has been concluded and does not limit the power of the police to make arrests in light of Section 15,” he said.
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In most districts in Assam, no women have been arrested. In the detailed data up to Monday evening, women were shown to have been arrested in nine out of 35 districts and Guwahati.
According to Baksa SP Rajen Singh, in most of these cases, the women are mothers of either the husband or the wife in the alleged child marriage cases.
“They were basically facilitators of child marriage. Some of them are mothers of the groom, some are mothers of the bride. We have also been arresting people who have been solemnising such marriages. We are trying to arrest everyone who are facilitators, be it mother, father or solemniser,” he said.
“These women will be the relatives of the married couple. In all cases, we are arresting the groom first. But in maximum cases, we are also identifying and holding people for abetment,” said Hailakandi SP Nabaneet Mahanta.
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“We are not arresting women and relatives in all cases but based on the investigation and level of involvement found,” said Cachar SP Numal Mahatta.
