Udupi: Minor flees home to escape torture

Udupi: Minor flees home to escape torture

Mangalore Today News Network

Udupi, April 6: A seventeen-and-a-half-year old girl from Bangalore said on Tuesday that she had been forced to marry her maternal uncle a year ago though she was a minor and was being tortured by her husband.

 

Addressing presspersons here, she said that she was pursuing first year pre-university course at a college in Bangalore when she was forced to get married to her maternal uncle Anantha (29), in Mandya on March 3, 2010. Though she had told her parents that she did not want to get married but to study, they got her married to her mother’s brother. After marriage, she approached the Assistant Commissioner at the High Grounds Police Station in Bangalore and sought help. In the meantime, her parents had lodged a missing complaint because of which the police handed her over to her parents.

Her father Lingaraju M.B. is a clerk in a chartered accountant’s firm. Her mother, who is dominating by nature, has been in favour of her marriage.

 

 

The teenager said her husband stays in her parents’ house and works at the photocopying shop run by her mother Rathna L. He is an alcoholic and would beat her ruthlessly whenever she resisted him from assaulting her sexually.

To escape torture, she fled Bangalore soon after completing her second pre-university course examinations on March 28. She went to Dharmasthala and stayed there for about three days and then went to Kundapur. When she was thinking of committing suicide, someone told her she could get help from social worker Radha Das. So, she met Radha Das and shared her experience with her and expressed the desire to stay back at Kundapur, pursue studies and find a job for livelihood.

Ms. Radha Das, who is also the president of Kundapur Taluk Mahila Mandilagala Okkoota, said the teenager has marks of torture on her body.

She said she would approach the Deputy Commissioner, Superintendent of Police, Women and Child Welfare Officer and other authorities to decide on the future course of action to be taken with regard to the young girl.