Guwahati: Chief minister of Assam Himanta Biswa Sarma announced on Monday that 2,441 people had been arrested in connection with child marriage cases.
This occurs as the fourth day of the Assam Police’s widespread campaign against underage marriage begins. Following the chief minister’s explicit commands, the police have taken action including making arrests of people involved in underage marriages.
Taking to Twitter today, CM Sarma updated about the number of arrests in the case so far. He wrote, “Total arrest so far – 2441. Crackdown against Child marriage continues in #assam.”
It should be mentioned that as of Sunday, there have been 2,278 arrests made in all of Assam. 139 people were arrested in Biswanath, 130 in Barpeta, 126 in Dhubri, 123 in Baksa, 117 in Bongaigaon, 101 in Nagaon, 94 in Kokrajhar, 85 in Kamrup and 84 in each of the districts of Goalpara and Udalguri, according to information provided by the Assam police.
The manhunt was launched since February 3 after directives by the Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to bring an end to child marriage and nab accused.
The Assam chief minister has said that the campaign against child marriage will go on till the 2026 state assembly elections.
A total of 4,074 cases related to child marriage were registered by the police. Because of information he had received concerning the prevalence of child marriage in the state, the CM had ordered the police to conduct an investigation.
This episode of the wave of crackdowns began on May 5, 2022, the day the Health Ministry released the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5fifth )’s report which was conducted in 2019 and 2020. The Assam administration reviewed the study carefully and thoroughly and it revealed major worries about teen pregnancy, child marriage and maternal mortality.
According to the study, 31.8% of Assam’s women between the ages of 20 and 24 who were married were under the age of 18 or underage. This was significantly higher than the 23.3 percent national average.