Tag: crackdown

No ‘security testing’ or ‘crackdown’ plans for smartphone makers: Govt

[ad_1]
New Delhi: The government on Wednesday said there are no plans for security testing for smartphones or crackdown on pre-installed applications, as the sole emphasis is on ease of doing business and boosting local electronics manufacturing.
Responding to a media report, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said that there is no “security testing” or “crackdown” plans for smartphone makers at the end of the government.
“@GoI_MeitY is 100 per cent committed to ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and is totally focused on growing electronics manufacturing to touch $300 billion by 2026,” the minister said in a tweet.
Electronics manufacturing in the country is likely to cross Rs 1.28 lakh crore in the next financial year, according to Chandrasekhar.
“The mobile phone production in India had increased from 5.8 crore units valued at about Rs 18,900 crore in 2014-15 to 31 crore units valued at over Rs 2,75,000 crore in the last financial year, as a result of various initiatives of the government, including the ‘Phased Manufacturing programme’,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said during her Union Budget 2023-24 speech in Parliament.
In the period from April-December 2022, mobile phone exports reached nearly $7-8 billion, and is expected to cross $9 billion for the fiscal year.
The government has set a target to achieve $300 billion of electronics manufacturing by 2025-26, out of which $75-100 billion of electronics manufacturing is expected from Uttar Pradesh alone, according to the India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA).

[ad_2]
#security #testing #crackdown #plans #smartphone #makers #Govt
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 15, 2023
Indian-origin UK home minister proposes new crackdown on illegal migrants

[ad_1]
London: Britain’s Indian-origin Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, on Tuesday announced a new Illegal Migration Bill that will mean migrants arriving in the UK illegally on small boats will be “removed swiftly”.
The minister, whose father is of Goan heritage and mother of Tamil heritage, referenced her own migrant roots during her statement in the House of Commons to lay out details of the new “robust approach” against illegal migration.
“They will not stop coming here until the world knows that if you enter Britain illegally you will be detained and swiftly removed back to your country, if it is safe, or a safe third country such as Rwanda,” Braverman.
“And that is precisely what this bill will do. That is how we will stop the boats,” she said.
The Home Secretary said the new bill will mean last-minute judicial reviews “conducted late at night with no chance to make our case or even appeal decisions” are no longer allowed.
“Now, the United Kingdom must always support the world’s most vulnerable. Since 2015, we have given sanctuary to nearly half a million people. These include 150,000 people from Hong Kong, 160,000 people from Ukraine, 25,000 Afghans fleeing the Taliban.
“Indeed, my own parents decades ago found security and opportunity in this country, something for which my family is eternally grateful,” said Braverman.
“For a government not to respond to waves of illegal migrants breaching our borders would be to betray the will of the people we were elected to serve,” she said.

Under the new law, it will be her duty as Home Secretary “to remove” those entering the UK via illegal routes. This will take legal precedence over someone’s right to claim asylum although there will be exemptions for under-18s, those with serious medical conditions, and some “at real risk of serious and irreversible harm”.
Any other asylum claims will be heard remotely after removal. The bill allows for the detention of illegal arrivals without bail or judicial review within the first 28 days of detention, until they can be removed.
Besides a crackdown on unsafe boats crossing over from the French sea border, Braverman also revealed plans for an annual Parliament-set cap on migrants granted asylum in the UK through safe routes.
The bill, the full details of which are yet to be published in Parliament, comes after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak indicated plans for a tough new law over the weekend.
“Make no mistake, if you come here illegally, you will not be able to stay,” Sunak told the Sunday Express’ newspaper.
Refugee charities and human rights groups have warned of the legal implications for vulnerable asylum seekers.
“Of course, the UK will always seek to uphold international law and I am confident that this bill is compatible with international obligations,” Braverman insisted in the Commons.
The Opposition Labour party has raised doubts about the legality and feasibility of the bill and the Liberal Democrats said ministers had drawn up “another half-baked plan”.
[ad_2]
#Indianorigin #home #minister #proposes #crackdown #illegal #migrants
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 7, 2023
MHA to launch major crackdown on militants operating from Pak, PoJK

[ad_1]
JAMMU, Feb 26: The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) with the assistance of Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP) and Intelligence Agencies has prepared a list of local militants, who were operating from Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Jammu Kashmir (PoJK) and trying to fan terror in the Union Territory to declare them as “individual terrorists” leading to attachment of their assets and freezing of bank accounts besides initiating other legal action against them available under various Acts including Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Security agencies believed that Dhangri attack in Rajouri district on January 1 could also be the handiwork of the local militants sitting in Pakistan and PoJK especially in selecting the target as they are well versed with minority-dominated villages though it has been established that the killings were executed by the foreign terrorists.
Official sources told the Excelsior that Doda district in Jammu region has highest numbers of 118 militants operating from Pakistan and PoJK and 10 of them are in the rank of commanders of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) outfits.
Of them, the Home Ministry has already declared two as individual terrorists including Irshad Ahmed Attu alias Adrees son of Ghulam Mohammad Attu R/o Domail Udhyanpur and Mohammad Amin alias Khubaib alias Haroon son of Dawood Butt of Nandna Phagsoo, Thathri. Abdul Rashid alias Jehangir son of Arsullah Khanday, a resident of Khanpur Phagsoo could fall in the same category shortly as dossier against him is ready.
Seven other militant commanders from Doda operating in Pakistan and PoJK who are also likely to be declared as individual terrorists include Abdul Hai alias Tahir Bilal son of Ghulam Mohammad Bhat of Sazan Bhagwah, Mohammad Hussain Khateeb son of Abdul Hai Khateeb of Masjid Mohalla, Bhaderwah, Khalid Hussain alias Saifullah son of Abdul Qadoos of Hamdanpur, Majeed Hussain alias Abu Zeahed Mujahid son of Mangta Butt of Manoie Gandoh, Mohammad Shafi alias Nadeem son of Ghulam Mohammad of Trenkal Kahara, Naseer Ahmed alias Babloo son of Ghulam Hussain Thukur R/o Khai Mohalla Bhaderwah, Nazir Ahmed Gujjar alias Abu Manazir son of Lal din Gujjar of Bagla Bharath, Shabir Ahmed Naik alias Shera son of Ghulam Mohammad Naik of Dandal Kastigarh, Atta Mohammad son of Ghulam Nabi R/o Tanta Kahara, Zakir Hussain son of Abdul Rashid R/o Draina Bhalla in Bhaderwah and Abdul Rashid alias Jahangir son of Arsullah Khanday of Khanpura Phagsoo.
“Rest seven active militants would also be declared as individual terrorists and police administration is engaged in preparing dossiers against them including the terror acts executed by the militants here at their behest. Role of these militants has been established with documentary evidence,” sources said.
Police and Intelligence agencies have gathered all details about these terrorists including the places they were living in Pakistan and PoJK, the militants they have trained so far, their role in infiltrating militants and pushing arms, ammunition and explosives through drones and other means and luring local youth including their relatives into the militancy.
However, no major terror act has been reported from Doda district, once hub of the militancy, last year, due to alertness and activeness shown by the district police and preemptive actions taken by them.
Similarly, 36 youth from once militancy infested Kishtwar district have been identified as terrorists operating in Pakistan and PoJK including some of those who are active and inciting local youth through mobile phones, internet calls and other modes of communication to take to the arms. However, they have met with no or very little success as local youth were not taking to militancy now.

Mohammad Rafiq of Nar Gursai and Shamsheer Hussain of Gounthal in Poonch district are also set to be declared as “individual terrorists” very soon as they were directly affiliated with Jammu and Kashmir Ghaznavi Force (JKGF) which was recently banned by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
Both of them are operating from Pakistan and were instrumental earlier in guiding local youth to take to terror acts including planting of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and grenades in the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri.
Fourteen youth from Rajouri and Poonch districts are also operating from Pakistan and police don’t rule out the possibility of some of them being behind Dhangri attack in Rajouri district on January 1 this year in which seven civilians from minorities including two minors were killed and over a dozen others were injured.
Though it has almost been confirmed that the killings were executed by two foreign terrorists, sources said it remains to be seen how they selected the target like minority-dominated village, route taken to reach there and escape after the carnage etc.
“The fact that the killers might have been guided by the terrorists from across the border is not ruled out,” sources said.
They added that the Home Ministry has asked police to prepare dossiers against the militants who were operating from Pakistan and PoJK for declaring them as individual terrorists to facilitate seizure of their assets, mobile and immobile, and freeze the bank accounts which might have been used for transactions.
“The action is expected to be taken very soon as this will help check terror activities,” sources said.
[ad_2]
#MHA #launch #major #crackdown #militants #operating #Pak #PoJK
( With inputs from : roshankashmir.net )

February 26, 2023
Nicaragua: Ortega crackdown deepens as 94 opponents stripped of citizenship

[ad_1]
Daniel Ortega’s authoritarian regime has intensified its political crackdown, stripping 94 Nicaraguans of their citizenship, including some of the Central American country’s most celebrated writers and journalists, among them the Guardian contributor Wilfredo Miranda.
The move was announced by a Nicaraguan judge on Wednesday and sparked renewed condemnation of Ortega’s Sandinista government, which has been waging a dogged offensive against perceived rivals since June 2021.
Last week 222 political prisoners, including some of Nicaragua’s leading opposition activists, were deported from Nicaragua and flown to the US – a move widely interpreted as a sign of Ortega’s determination to remain in power after 16 years as president.
Nicaragua’s government called the deportees, who were also stripped of their citizenship, “traitors to the motherland”.
Those deprived of citizenship on Wednesday included the internationally acclaimed novelist Sergio Ramírez, the poet and writer Gioconda Belli, the investigative journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the auxiliary bishop of Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, Silvio Báez, and Miranda, an award-winning reporter who writes for the Spanish newspaper El País and the Guardian.
El País’s Americas director, Jan Martínez Ahrens, called the decision an act of “vileness” that exposed Nicaragua’s “totalitarian drift” under Ortega, a 77-year-old former revolutionary icon who helped overthrow the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s.
Belli, who lives in exile in Spain, responded to having her citizenship removed by publishing one of her poems on Twitter.
“And I love you homeland of my dreams and my sorrows and I will secretly take you to wash off your stains, to whisper you hope and promise you cures and charms that will save you,” she wrote.

y te amo patria de mis sueños y mis penas
y te llevo conmigo para lavarte las manchas en secreto
susurrarte esperanzas
y prometerte curas y encantos que te salven.
— Gioconda Belli (@GiocondaBelliP) February 16, 2023
Chamorro, 67, who will give this year’s Reuters Memorial Lecture in Oxford early next month, said Ortega and his vice-president and wife, Rosario Murillo, had shown “enormous political weakness” with their actions. “In Nicaragua, everyone knows the only… traitors are Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. They have demolished democracy,” Chamorro wrote.
Brian Nichols, the US state department’s assistant secretary for western hemisphere affairs, condemned the move, tweeting: “This deplorable act represents a step further away from the democracy the people of Nicaragua deserve.”
Speaking to the Washington Post last week, Human Rights Watch’s acting deputy director for the Americas offered a bleak prognosis for Nicaragua’s political future under Ortega.
“The country is on the verge of becoming the western hemisphere’s equivalent of North Korea,” said Juan Pappier.

[ad_2]
#Nicaragua #Ortega #crackdown #deepens #opponents #stripped #citizenship
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

February 16, 2023
2,789 people held so far as crackdown on child marriage continues: Assam CM

[ad_1]
Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that 2,789 people have been arrested so far during the ongoing crackdown on child marriage, which completed a week on Friday.
The government has also initiated a process to take measures for the rehabilitation of “victims” of child marriage.
“Now, total arrest 2789. Crackdown continues,” Sarma wrote on Twitter.
Though protests at various places by families of those arrested have been reported in the last few days, Assam Police spokesperson Prasanta Kumar Bhuyan had on Thursday said that no such incident took place anywhere in the state during the last 24 hours.
The Assam Police had launched the crackdown on child marriage on February 3, with over 2,000 people, including Hindu and Muslim priests who officiated these weddings, arrested within the first two days.
The arrests are being carried out on the basis of 4,135 FIRs registered across the state.
The state government has formed a cabinet sub-committee on the rehabilitation of “victims” of child marriage, and Sarma’s cabinet colleagues Ranoj Pegu, Keshab Mahanta and Ajanta Neog have been named as members of the panel.
Opposition parties have criticised the manner in which the drive is being carried out, terming the arrests of teenage husbands and family members as “abuse of law” for political gain, and equating the police action with “terrorising people”.

Sarma had earlier this week justified the crackdown and said nearly 17 per cent of over 6.2 lakh pregnant women in Assam last year were teenagers, according to the Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) portal.
[ad_2]
#people #held #crackdown #child #marriage #continues #Assam
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 10, 2023
235 more held in Assam as crackdown on child marriage continues

[ad_1]
Guwahati: The Assam Police on Thursday said it has apprehended 235 more people for allegedly marrying minors, taking the tally of arrests to over 2,750, as Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma vowed to continue the crackdown on the social menace.
A total of 2,763 people have been arrested so far against 4,135 FIRs registered across the state, the Assam Police said in a statement.
“Our crackdown against child marriage continues… The drive against this social evil will continue. We seek the support of the people of Assam in our fight against this social crime,” Sarma tweeted.
He had earlier this week justified the measures and said nearly 17 per cent of over 6.2 lakh pregnant women in Assam last year were teenagers, according to the Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) portal.
Meanwhile, police said a pregnant woman, who married last year while being a minor, died at a hospital during delivery in Bongaigaon on Sunday, and her husband and father-in-law have been arrested.
“The 18-year old girl died at a hospital in Jogighopa during delivery,” Bongaigaon SP Swapnaneel Deka told PTI.
The SP also said the deputy commissioner of the district has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the woman’s death.
Though protests at various places by families of those arrested have been reported in the last few days, Assam Police spokesperson Prasanta Kumar Bhuyan said that no such incident took place anywhere in the state during the last 24 hours.

The Assam government has also formed a cabinet sub-committee on rehabilitation of the “victims” of child marriage, Education Minister Ranoj Pegu said.
“I am a member of that sub-committee along with Health Minister Keshab Mahanta and Finance Minister Ajanta Neog,” he told a press conference here.
“We will submit a report within a very short span of time,” Pegu added.
The Assam Police had launched the crackdown on child marriage on February 3, with over 2,000 people, including Hindu and Muslim priests who officiated these weddings, arrested within the first two days.
Opposition parties have criticised the manner in which it is being carried out, terming the arrests of teenage husbands and family members as “abuse of law” for political gain, and equating the police action with “terrorising people”.
[ad_2]
#held #Assam #crackdown #child #marriage #continues
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 9, 2023
Temporary jails coming up in Assam as crackdown on child marriage continues

[ad_1]
Guwahati: As the crackdown on child marriage continued in Assam, the police are now setting up additional prison facilities to house the accused, with two such arrangements in Goalpara and Cachar districts already in the offing.
While accused from different districts have already been moved to the facility in Goalpara, another such temporary jail is coming up in Cachar as well.
“We have got the approval for setting up a temporary jail. It will be established in a non-functional existing government premises near Silchar,” Cachar Superintendent of Police Nomal Mahatta told PTI.
He said building and other infrastructure are already available and security arrangements are now being put in place.
Mahatta added that the temporary jail will be used once the existing facilities run out of space.
In Goalpara district, a transit camp for doubtful and declared foreigners in Matia area is being used to accommodate accused in child marriage cases from neighbouring districts, a police official said.
“Some of the accused held in Nalbari, Barpeta and Kamrup districts are being brought to this temporary jail,” he said.
The first dedicated centre to put suspected and declared foreigners in Assam, the Matia transit camp has a capacity to house 3,000 inmates, with 68 people moved into it in the first batch in January.

The opposition has criticised the manner in which the drive against child marriage was being carried out, equating the police action with “terrorising people”.
Family members of those arrested have also been protesting against the operation.
The Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation has demanded that the Assam government provide a monthly assistance of Rs 2,000 to every woman whose husband has been arrested till he gets bail.
AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi had said that the Assam government should have concentrated on increasing literacy levels if it was actually seized of the problem of child marriage.
At least 2,528 people have been arrested and 4,074 cases registered in the state so far as part of the crackdown that began on Friday.
With the large number of household heads, in many cases the sole bread earners, being arrested, protests were staged in different parts of the state with wives, children and family members coming out on the streets.
“Our menfolk have been taken away by the police, leaving us without anyone to look after or to provide food for us,” said Reshma Khatun, one of those protesting at Dhubri on Monday.
Justifying the action, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said teenage pregnancy accounted for nearly 17 per cent of over 6.2 lakh pregnant women last year in the state.
The state cabinet recently approved a proposal to book men who have married girls below 14 years under the POCSO Act.
Cases under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 will be registered against those who have married girls in the age group of 14-18, the cabinet had decided.
The offenders will be arrested and the marriages declared illegal.
Assam has a high rate of maternal and infant mortality, with child marriage being identified as the primary cause, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
[ad_2]
#Temporary #jails #coming #Assam #crackdown #child #marriage #continues
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 8, 2023
Assam govt’s motive malicious: Owaisi on crackdown on child marriages

[ad_1]
Lucknow: AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday questioned the Assam government’s motive behind its crackdown on child marriages in the state and said the exercise reflects a “failure of governance” by the BJP dispensation.
“There is a malicious motive behind all the action that is being taken,” the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader told PTI in a telephonic interview, when asked about the hundreds of arrests made in the northeast state.
More than 2,250 people have been arrested in Assam till Saturday in the crackdown on child marriage, according to an official statement by the state government.
Owaisi, who was in Lucknow to attend the executive committee meeting of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), said, “As you know the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act was passed in 2006, and it is the BJP’s government which is in power in Assam for the last six years. Now, why did the government not stop all these in the last six years? This really shows the failure of their governance.”
“Experts have said that if you want to stop child marriages, you have to open a lot of schools, (but) you have not done that. You have closed down the madrassas too which were imparting some form of education,” he alleged.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday asserted that the drive against child marriage launched by the state police from the previous day would continue till the next Assembly elections in 2026.
A total of 2,258 people have been arrested so far across the state based on 4,074 FIRs, the Assam government statement said.
Speaking to PTI, Owaisi asked who would now take care of the poor women who have been left in the lurch after the state government’s crackdown on child marriages.

“Now, who will look after those poor women? Forget about whether they are Muslims or not Muslims or Hindus? Who will take care of them now? What steps is the government taking to look after them? … many of them have children now,” he said.
Owaisi also informed that he recently shared a tweet about an Assamese woman who has died by suicide.
“You must remember that at 18-plus, we allow consensual sexual relationships. So, how does it make sense if at 18 she is having a consensual sexual relationship and then you are saying it is child marriage? Even in the law, this needs to be looked into,” he said.
“It is a completely biased government against Muslims, discriminatory against Muslims. For example they went on an (anti)-encroachment drive, wherein they made hundreds of Muslim families homeless in Assam. In upper Assam, they gave ‘pattas’ (land strip) to landless people, but in lower Assam, they don’t do that,” Owaisi alleged.
The Assam cabinet had recently decided that those having married girls below 14 years of age will be booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The council of ministers also took the decision that cases under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 will be registered against those who have married girls in the 14-18 years age group.
[ad_2]
#Assam #govts #motive #malicious #Owaisi #crackdown #child #marriages
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 5, 2023
2,278 arrested in three days in Assam’s child marriage crackdown

[ad_1]
Guwahati: The Assam Police continued with its crackdown on child marriage in the state for the third day in a row, with the number of arrests touching 2,278 on Sunday.
A police statement said the arrests were made based on 4,074 FIRs across the state.
At least 139 people have been apprehended in Biswanath, followed by 130 in Barpeta and 126 in Dhubri, the statement said.
Other districts where over 100 arrests have been made are Baksa (123) and Bongaigaon and Hojai (117 each), it maintained.
Dhubri registered the highest number of FIRs against child marriages at 374 cases, followed by Hojai at 255 and Morigaon at 224.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had on Saturday asserted that the drive against child marriage will continue till the next assembly elections in 2026.
He had said parents involved in underage marriages are currently being let off with a notice.
The CM added that men marrying girls below 14 years of age will be facing non-bailable charges, while those marrying girls between 14 to 16 years of age will be charged under bailable sections.

The state cabinet had recently approved a proposal to book men who have married girls below 14 years of age under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Cases under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 will be registered against those who have married girls in the 14-18 years’ age group, the cabinet decided.
The offenders will be arrested and the marriages declared illegal.
If the groom is below 14 years of age, he will be sent to a reform house.
Assam has a high rate of maternal and infant mortality, with child marriage being the primary cause, according to reports by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS.
An average of 31 per cent of marriages registered in the state are in the prohibited age group, the NFHS had noted.
[ad_2]
#arrested #days #Assams #child #marriage #crackdown
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 5, 2023
‘There was a knock on the door at 2 am’: Assam’s child bride recounts crackdown

[ad_1]
Morigaon: Nimee’s eyes do not sparkle with the joy of new motherhood, instead, they reflect the fear, insecurity and sense of foreboding that stalks her village in Assam’s Morigaon district.
Rezina Khatun stares vacuously into the distance — trying to make sense of the sudden apocalypse, which has struck her till-now happy world.
While Nimee is among the thousands of child brides whose husbands were arrested in a state-wide crackdown against child marriage by the Assam Police over the last two days, Rezina is a mother whose son’s romantic escapade, which had ended with marriage, has landed him in jail now.
In the drive against child marriage, police had till Saturday arrested 2,258 people, including Hindu and Muslim priests who conducted such weddings. Police said there is a list of a total 8,000 accused.
The police had registered 4,074 cases of child marriage in less than a fortnight after the state Cabinet decided on January 23 to arrest offenders, besides launching an extensive awareness campaign against the menace.
“There was a knock on the door around 2 am on Thursday. We opened the door and found policemen outside. They took away my husband,” Nimee told PTI in a feeble voice, as her one-and-half-month-old son cried in her arms just as he had when his father was being arrested.
The 17-year-old had eloped and tied the knot with Gopal Biswas, who is in his twenties, more than a year back, and were starting off their family with the husband providing for them by selling pakoras and other savouries.
The names of those affected were changed to protect their identities.

“We barely earn enough to feed our own families. Who will look after Nimee and her son? She has been inconsolable, barely eating anything. The child is also getting sick now,” said Yudishter, Gopal’s elder brother, who lives in the same house along with their aged parents.
Rezina’s son Rajibul Hussain was picked up from their home around 6 pm on Thursday, barely a few minutes after he had reached home with his father after returning from a trip to Kerala, where they had gone to bring back his injured uncle.
“My daughter-in-law is not underage but there was some error in her Aadhaar card due to which my son is now behind bars. She has gone to our native place, some distance away, to get her birth records,” Rezina claimed, trying to convince whoever cared to listen.
A neighbour of the family claimed that many like Rajibul’s wife were not minors at the time of the marriage but their dates of birth were wrongly entered while enrolling for Aadhaar cards.
“Data on the age was taken by the police from local health workers, who have the information based on the Aadhaar. Now, we are helping these women to get their original birth records so that their husbands can get bail,” he claimed.
While some are getting help and support from their families, many like Riya Devi are left to the mercy of the authorities after the arrest of their husbands.
“We don’t have any other family as we had eloped and got married. Where am I to go with my one-year-old daughter now from here?” questioned 16-year-old Riya, who is staying temporarily at a government-run shelter home.
Another inmate Rupa Das, also 16 years old and nine months pregnant, shared the same uncertainty. “Set my husband free. We had married with consent. What will I do now if he is not around,” she pleaded.
Parimita Deka, a gender specialist at the state’s Social Welfare Department, is working with the likes of Riya and Rupa. “The drive against child marriage is very welcome. But we also have a responsibility towards these women now,” she said.
“Most are children themselves. We have to handle them sensitively and secure their future,” Deka added between counselling sessions to pacify the distraught women.
While child marriage is rampant in the state, the people were not altogether ignorant of the laws prohibiting it.
“We knew there was some kind of law but it was never implemented. Government should have warned us that there is such strict action for any lapse and we would have been careful,” Yudishter maintained.
Another local businessman, Umar Ali, said organisations used to create some awareness regarding it, but it was not enough at most times.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has said that the drive against child marriage will continue till the next assembly elections in 2026.
Assam has a high rate of maternal and infant mortality, with child marriage being the primary cause as an average of 31 per cent of marriages registered in the state are in the prohibited age group, according to the National Family Health Survey.
[ad_2]
#knock #door #Assams #child #bride #recounts #crackdown
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 5, 2023