Man ‘forced to wed’ woman at gunpoint

Aman in Bihar’s Vaishali district has alleged he was kidnapped, threatened and forced to marry a school dropout against his will at gunpoint, a charge denied by the woman.

The 23-year-old woman, Priyanka Kumari, has claimed that the family of Durgesh Sharan, an engineer with the Indian Railways and posted at the Samastipur diesel locomotive shed, had demanded a dowry for the wedding.

Priyanka, who dropped out of school after class X, said she knew Sharan, 30, and met him during a wedding ceremony about a year ago.

Mahua sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Malti Kumari confirmed that Sharan was abducted and coerced into the marriage and said they have sent him and the woman to a court in Vaishali to record their statements. The police would act on the court’s directive, she added.

Police have seized their cellphones and will send these to a forensic laboratory for a detailed examination.

Such forcible wedding or ‘Pakadua vivah’ was a common practice in Bihar but saw a decline after government initiatives and police tightening its grip on people abducting eligible bachelors for marriages to avoid paying dowry.

The police officer said Sharan’s mother Veena Devi, a teacher at the Chakmashood primary school, had lodged a complaint with Jandaha police station late on Saturday that her son was abducted by 11 men and identified five of them.

Police said Sharan was abducted while he was on his way to Vaishali on a motorcycle with his friend Sourav Kumar. Some men in a car intercepted them at Salha Chowk power grid and forced Sharan to get into the vehicle. They took him to Judawanpur and forcibly married him to Kumari.

A team from Jadawanpur police station rescued Sharan from the house of a person named Arvind Rai after acting on a tip-off. When the police team reached Rai’s house they found Sharan sitting with a newlywed woman.