Assam: Families point to erroneous’ data in ID cards behind child marriage arrests

Morigaon : As more and more young men find themselves behind bars with the Assam government continuing its crackdown on child marriage, their wives are running from pillar to post to find documents to prove they were not underage at the time of wedlock.
Many affected families also claimed that identity documents with “erroneous” birth dates of women were cited by police for registering cases.
A total of 2,241 arrests have been made so far in the state, based on 4,074 FIRs, as part of the crackdown launched four days ago.
An elderly resident of Bhuragaon in Morigaon district claimed that most of the child marriage cases were registered on the basis of data collected from local health workers, who keep track of pregnant women, lactating mothers and families with small children to ensure coverage of government schemes.
“These health workers use Aadhaar card information, as this is the latest document in possession of the villagers. However, errors related to birth dates have been spotted in the Aadhaar cards, but no one took serious note,” he told PTI.
Another villager, Jamaluddin, whose son Rajibul Hussain is in police custody, alleged that he was arrested based on the date of birth of his daughter-in-law as mentioned in the Aadhaar card.