A 29-year old engineer from Bihar was reportedly abducted and forced to marry at gunpoint. A video of Vinod Kumar, junior manager at Bokaro Steel Plant, donning wedding attire and crying through the ceremony as he is forced by the bride’s family to complete the rituals in Patna's Pandarak area, has gone viral on social media.
According to NDTV, Kumar was allegedly abducted by the bride’s brother, Surendra Yadav, and coerced into marrying his sister.
This is part of an old, regressive custom called Pakadua Vivah, where those who are ‘eligible bachelors’ are abducted and forced to marry women whose families usually cannot afford to provide dowries, reported Being Indian.
Kumar had alleged that he had met Yadav at a mutual friend’s wedding near Patna, who, after forcing him to travel to Mokama, later pointed a gun at him and ordered him to marry his sister.
In the video, Kumar is first seen being thrashed by what seems to be members of the bride’s family, when he seemingly refused to get married. Following this, the next couple of seconds shows him dressed in groom’s attire and crying through the ceremonies, as he is harassed by some of the female members of the bride’s family.
The bride’s identity, however, remains unknown, and in the video, her face is covered by her sari.
When he refused to marry, the female members of the bride’s family can be heard saying: “We are only performing your wedding, not hanging you.”
Kumar’s brother, Sanjay, told NDTV that sometime last month, he had received a call from an unknown number, telling him about his brother’s 'Pakadua Vivah' (forced marriage). When he had approached the police at the Pandarak police station, however, they had refused to help.
The police, in turn, refuted these allegations and said that they had asked the boy’s family to lodge an abduction case at Mokama because the incident had happened there, reported The New Indian Express.
NDTV reported that Patna Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj ordered the Pandarak police to rescue Kumar from the village where he was kept after the forced marriage.
Since then, the report added, Kumar’s family have been receiving threat calls from the bride’s family, demanding that he accept her. The former have now sought police protection.
“We are looking into it and will take action against the culprits. We are also probing the role of the local police,” Patna city Superintendent of Police Amarkesh told News18.
(With inputs from NDTV and The New Indian Express)
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