Assam child marriage net cast wide, across districts and communities

The community-wise break-up of the arrests had been brought up by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in the state Assembly last week.

To counter allegations by Opposition MLAs that the crackdown had targeted those from minority communities, the CM had said that the ratio of Muslims and Hindus arrested was 55:45.

The details of those arrested were submitted as annexures to a reply by Sarma— who is also the Home Minister — to a question by AIUDF MLA Ashraful Hussain, who had sought district-wise details of all those arrested in the crackdown.

A district-wise break-up of the arrests shows that the top five districts in terms of the number of arrests are Nagaon (224), Hojai (219), Dhubri (217), Baksa (179) and Barpeta (174). In Baksa, a Lower Assam district with a mixed population, Hindus and others constitute 62.64 per cent of those arrested. Roughly 40 per cent of the arrests were made in the 10 Lower Assam districts.

The five districts with the lowest number of arrests are Jorhat (8), West Karbi Anglong (10), Dibrugarh (11), Majuli (24) and Sivasagar (25). While Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Majuli and Sivasagar are in Upper Assam, a region seen as the Assamese heartland, West Karbi Anglong is a largely tribal district from Central Assam.

When the crackdown was announced in January, the government said all those who had married girls below the age of 14 would be booked under sections of the POCSO Act. The data shows that provisions of POCSO had been invoked in 2,289 of the 2,361 cases in which arrests have been made – or in 97 per cent of the cases.

The cases have been registered under Sections 6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) and 17 (abetment) – non-bailable offences under the POCSO Act. Arrests have also been made under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act and Section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code.

Despite the fact that POCSO had been applied in such a large number of cases, data submitted by the Home Department of 3,098 people who have been arrested shows that 62% per cent (1,922) had received bail till the end of February.

Assam Director General of Police G P Singh said, “Bail is the prerogative of the honourable courts. We have submitted 889 chargesheets till date. Efforts are on to submit chargesheets in all the cases at the earliest.”

Granting anticipatory bail in four such cases last month, Justice Suman Shyam, in response to objections against granting of bail because of application of POCSO, had remarked, “POCSO (charge) you can add (to) anything. What is the POCSO (offence) here? Merely because POCSO is added does it mean judges won’t see what is there.”

Speaking in the Assam Legislative Assembly on March 15, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma refuted claims by Opposition MLAs that the High Court had criticised the government’s use of the POCSO law in these cases.

“As the Chief Minister of Assam, with all command and responsibility, I wish to say that the Gauhati High Court has not passed any negative comment whatsoever against the Assam government… We don’t have a problem if bail is given to someone now but still there are 1,000 accused who have not gotten bail from courts yet. Even the police have said that we don’t have an objection if someone is given bail. We had to give a message, we have given it,” he said.

According to Shruthi Ramakrishnan, a legal researcher who specialises in POCSO cases, while offences under the Act are non-bailable, courts consider a wide variety of factors. In cases where marriage or consensual sex is involved, she observed that it is rare for bail to not be given.