Priests, marriage hall-owners and catering contractors will be put behind bars if they support parents to perform child marriages, said Krishnagiri collector C.N. Maheswaran on Wednesday.
In order to put an end to child marriages, a socially-accepted practice in Krishnagiri, the collector warned the priests, marriage hall-owners and catering contractors that he would take severe action against them if they helped in a child marriage.
He said, “I have warned all marriage hall-owners, priests and catering contractors that they will face legal action under non-bailable sections if they assist any parent to perform child marriage.”
SP Abhishek Dixit told DC he has asked inspectors to be alert on muhurtham days. “We will keep a tab on neighbourhoods where child marriages are rampant. We will build a network between NGOs and local police personnel to get updates on child marriages.
Though we conduct awareness rallies often, parents do not understand the problem,” he said. He added that recently, on Akshaya Tritiya day (April 24) his team was able to prevent eight marriages.
Krishnagiri social welfare officer K. Kalavathi said pamphlets distributed in schools helped in combating early marriages.
According to social welfare officials, over 70 child marriages were prevented in the last four years. This week alone, 11 marriages were stopped, they said.
Poverty is not a major reason for child marriages as there were cases of many affluent families getting their teenage daughters married to elderly men, they added.
Last week, V. Sowmia, 17, of Nandhimangalam village, who completed her plus-two exams recently, was being forced into marrying an elderly man.
Thanks to an unknown kind heart who informed child helpline number (8939697884) and stopped the marriage, Sowmia is free and can continue her studies.