CM’s mass marriage scheme: Fraud in U.P.’s Pilibhit again, case lodged
Mother accuses husband's brother & others of forcibly marrying off minor daughter in mass marriage scheme for gifts. Police investigating the case.
The mother of a 13-year-old girl has accused her husband’s elder brother and three others in Pilibhit of forcibly marrying off her minor daughter under the chief minister’s mass marriage scheme in January this year to get gifts given as part of the scheme.
A Pilibhit police official confirmed that the girl’s mother lodged an FIR at Madhotanda police station under Pooranpar police circle on Wednesday (May 22), alleging that her minor daughter was forcibly married off to a youth of Deoriyakala village.
He said the woman had accused her husband’s elder brother and three others of committing the fraud. He said the complainant claimed that her daughter was married in the mass marriage event held at Drummed College ground on January 27 this year.
The payment of ₹ 51,000 is made under the mass marriage scheme. Of it, ₹35,000 goes to the girl, ₹10,000 for purchasing matrimonial material and ₹6,000 for the event. The incident has yet again raised questions over the verification process of young girls and boys. Similar questions were raised on several couples who got married under the same scheme in Ballia in February earlier this year.
Pilibhit district magistrate SK Singh told media persons that the incident had come to light and stern action will be taken against those responsible for wrong verification of the girl’s age.
Similarly, as many as 15 people, including two sub-divisional officers (SDO), a clerk and 12 mediators, were arrested in the fraud exposed in the chief minister’s mass marriage scheme in Ballia district on January 25 earlier this year.
In this connection, the FIR was registered against an assistant development officer of the social welfare department and eight beneficiaries on January 26. It was alleged that many brides and grooms, who had already tied the knot, were married again under a mass marriage scheme held at Maniyar Inter College on January 25.
The fraud was exposed when a video of the mass marriage went viral on social media platforms that marriages of some women were shown without a groom and visuals showed women garlanding themselves.
