Over 40% of kidnappings in Bihar till November last year were related to marriages, according to data revealed by the police.
Over 40% of kidnappings in Bihar till November last year were related to marriages, according to data revealed by the police. Also out of 33,505 kidnapping cases lodged in the past five years, 14,965 were of “kidnapping for marriage,” an Indian Express report said.
In 2017, 8,336 cases of kidnapping were registered till November and 3,419 of them were related to marriage. In 2016, the number of such cases was 3,075 out of 7294 total cases. 3,001 out of 7,127 cases in 2015, 2,533 out of 5,374 cases in 2014 and 2,935 out of 5,484 cases in 2013 were “kidnapping for marriage”.
Revealing the data, a senior Bihar police official said that most of these cases are about men and women fleeing homes for marriages and incidents of “marriages at gun-point”, once common in the state, had become negligible.
“Most of these cases under ‘kidnapping for marriage’ category are about men and women fleeing homes for marriages. Some of these are forced marriages but there are negligible instances of marriages at gunpoint that happened in 1970s and 1980s," Additional Director General of Police Vinay Kumar said.
"Some of these men and women also fled out of fear that their marriage won’t be accepted or out of fear of honour killing. It is more a social issue than one of policing. We try to do community policing, but it is up to parents and children to find a solution," he said.
Kumar said the police had to specify reasons of kidnapping as per Supreme Court guidelines.
“We lodge cases under IPC section 363 in which reasons of kidnapping are not known," he said.
Forced wedding or 'pakadua shadi' was a common occurrence in Bihar during the 1970s and 1980s.
The recent case of such incident came to light in December last year when a 29-year-old engineer was reportedly abducted and forced to marry a woman at gunpoint in Patna.
Video clips from the wedding went viral on social media and were played by local TV channels.
In the video, Vinod Kumar, a junior manager at Bokaro Steel Plant, is being thrashed and forced to perform wedding rituals in Patna's Pandarak area while he cries for help. Some women, believed to be from the bride's family, ask him to cooperate.
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