Ranchi: A 14-year-old girl from a remote village in Gumla, around 200km from capital Ranchi, has openly defied her parents’ diktat to marry her off on February 4, by proactively contacting the police, district legal services authority and child welfare committee to say that she wanted to study.
Mamta Kumari (14), a Class IX girl belonging to a poor OBC family in Hapamuni village, Ghaghra block, who was supposed to deck up as a bride on Thursday, is now spending hours shuttling between the nearest police station, Ghaghra, which is 10km from her home, and district legal services and child welfare officials in Gumla town, asking them to save her from this illegal minor wedding, Gumla police sources have told The Telegraph.
Yesterday, when the spunky girl realised her constant pleas to her father Ratan Sahu to stop the wedding would have no effect, she told her parents she was going to SS High School in Ghaghra where she studies, but went straight to the police station instead with her plea that her marriage be stopped and she be allowed to study.
The local police directed Mamta to district legal services authority in Gumla town, where she submitted a written complaint to the clerk for the district and sessions judge A.R. Sinha, who heads the district legal services authority whose members include Gumla deputy commissioner Shravan Say and superintendent of police Bheemsen Tuti.
A sub-judge ranked judicial officer, who happens to be its secretary, forwarded her complaint to SP Tuti.
Then, the girl went back home and behaved normally.
This morning, a police team reached Mamta’s Hapamuni home and asked her and her parents to come to the thana. Though the girl complied, her parents dithered. As the police did not have a warrant, they could not press the parents to come along.
In Ghaghra and Gumla, the girl again repeated her story before the police and child welfare committee members, respectively. SP Tuti told The Telegraph that he personally directed Ghaghra police station OC to register a complaint and begin investigations, which have started.
Mamta, who reportedly told the police that her father, a poor farmer who could not afford to educate her further and felt 14 was a marriageable age for a girl in their community, had both cajoled and forced her to agree to the wedding, may have been inspired by Birasmuni Kumari (13), yet another Gumla schoolgirl from Palkot block who had last year had similarly refused to get married.
However, her parents did not turn up before the district child welfare committee to clarify their stand and take her back home. Some of her relatives did reach the office and promise officials they would help Mamta study further, but the child welfare officials did not allow them to take the girl home. Mamta was sent to Gyanashray Bal Grih, a children’s home run by NGO Vikas Bharti.
Praising the girl’s courage but sounding worried about the fact that her parents did not come, Gumla district child welfare committee chief Tagren Tanna said their team along with the police also went to Hapamuni village to fetch them but apparently they had absconded in the melee.