Assam establishes temporary prisons as crackdown on child marriage continues

Guwahati:

As the crackdown on child marriage continues in Assam, the police are now setting up additional prison facilities to house the accused, with two such schemes in Goalpara and Cachar districts already on the horizon.

While defendants from different districts have already been transferred to the facility in Goalpara, another temporary prison is also being built in Cachar.

“We have received approval to set up a temporary prison. It will be located in a non-functional existing government building near Silchar,” Cachar Police Superintendent Nomal Mahatta told PTI.

He said buildings and other infrastructure are already in place and security arrangements are now being made.

Mr Mahatta added that the temporary prison will be used once the existing facilities run out of space.

In Goalpara district, a transit camp for questionable and declared foreigners in the Matia area is being used to receive suspects in child marriage cases from neighboring districts, a police official said.

“Some of the suspects detained in Nalbari, Barpeta and Kamrup districts are being taken to this temporary prison,” he said.

The Matia transit camp, the first special center to house suspected and declared foreigners in Assam, has a capacity of 3,000 prisoners, with 68 people moved in in the first batch in January.

The opposition has criticized the way the fight against child marriage was conducted and equated the police actions with “terrorizing people”.

Relatives of those arrested have also protested against the operation.

The Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation has demanded that the government of Assam provide Rs 2,000 monthly support to any woman whose husband is arrested until he is released on bail.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi had said that the Assam government should have focused on raising literacy levels if it actually faced the problem of child marriage.

At least 2,528 people have been arrested and 4,074 cases recorded in the state so far as part of the crackdown that began on Friday.

As the large number of heads of households, in many cases the sole breadwinners, were arrested, protests were organized in various parts of the state, with women, children and relatives taking to the streets.

“Our men have been taken away by the police, leaving us without anyone to take care of us or feed us,” said Reshma Khatun, one of those protesting in Dhubri on Monday.

Justifying the move, Prime Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said teenage pregnancies accounted for nearly 17 percent of the over 6.2 lakh pregnant women in the state last year.

The state cabinet recently approved a proposal to book men married to girls under the age of 14 under the POCSO law.

The Child Marriage Prohibition Act 2006 will be registered against those who are married to girls in the 14-18 age group, the cabinet had decided.

The perpetrators will be arrested and the marriages will be declared illegal.

According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), there is a high rate of maternal and infant mortality in Assam with child marriage identified as the primary cause.

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