NHRC Indicts UP Police for Illegal Proceedings In Love Marriage

A Sub-Inspector had allegedly sexually assaulted the girl when she was in custody.

The woman hailing from or marrying into the Kanjarbhat community is expected to carry out a ‘virginity test’ on her first night as a bride.

(Photo: iStock)

The National Human Rights Commission, on Friday, 29 December, indicted the Uttar Pradesh Police for illegal proceedings in a love marriage in Balrampur district, in which human rights were “gravely violated.”

During the course of inquiry, the NHRC found that a young couple, who had eloped in Mumbai, was called to Mathura police of Balrampur after the girl’s father lodged a complaint of kidnapping.

Following this, the boy and the girl were detained in two different cells from 12 to 13 August 2014, the NHRC noted in its press release. A Sub-Inspector had allegedly sexually assaulted the girl.

Additionally, the police pursued the case as an underage marriage although, as per the City Court, they were both of age, and subsequently charged her husband with rape and also falsely implicated her father-in-law.

“The commission also found that in response to its notices, the Superintendent of Police, Balrampur, had failed to give a clear chain of incidents having unity of time, action and place involving the couple's marriage and action taken on another FIR registered by the girl, alleging sexual assault by a Sub-Inspector,” the press release stated.

According to ANI, the NHRC found that the girl was 17 years and 9 months in age, a little short of the legal requirement, but had attained the “age of discretion” and concluded that she couldn’t have been coerced as she had herself accepted her free will in the marriage.

Accordingly, it has issued a notice to the Government of Uttar Pradesh to explain why the woman, her husband, and father-in-law should not be recommended to be paid Rs 5 lakh, Rs 3 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh respectively as monetary relief in the case.

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