Thugs in India abduct underage bride, beat mother for resisting after father approves 'marriage'

Gabriel Zamfir
Mirror
Wed, 27 Sep 2017 08:04 UTC

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The men drag the young bride away after being promised her hand in marriage

This is the moment that shows two thugs violently abducting a teenage girl after her father had promised one of them his daughter as their wife.

The clip shot by an unknown relative in the village, shows the men trying to kidnap the girl as her mother desperately attempts to stop them.

Despite her efforts, the girl's mother is thrown roughly to the ground, in a shocking act of violence witnessed by a small boy thought to be the girl's little brother.

In the background the "bride" is seen trying to run away but one of the thugs, wielding a stick, catches her.

The other grabs her mother, throws her to the ground again and starts raining blows down on her head as the little boy cries in horror.

An older child then appears but he too is helpless to stop the men dragging the girl on to a waiting tractor.

It drives off, leaving one thug behind.

Indian media reported that the girl's father Aamad Khan had "married" his daughter to a man named as Shaukat, one of the two seen abducting her.

Shaukat and his pal Iliaas then arrived at the family's rural home of Kalu Khan Ki Dhani in the Jodphur in northern India take the unnamed young girl with them.

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The unnamed girl's age was not reported but she is known to be under 18, the minimum age for girls to marry in India. Boys can wed at 21.

Her mother Nemat wanted her to stay at home until she was of legally marriageable age.

It was not clear whether police had been informed or were investigating.

Comment: Child-marriages have been illegal in India since the 2006 passage of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, but the practice persists unabated, particularly among the rural poor. Girls forced into early marriage rarely continue their education, denying them any hope of independence, the ability to earn a livelihood or of making an economic contribution to their households. Girls under 15, their bodies still developing and their pelvises narrow, are five times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than women over 20, the U.S. Agency for International Development estimates.

• India's Child Marriages: An Ancient Evil, A Modern Reality
• Child Marriage a Scourge for Millions of Girls