A newly-appointed government school teacher was allegedly abducted and forcibly married to a girl in Vaishali district of Bihar in a case of "pakadwa vivah" (abduction of men for marriage).
The incident, which came just days after Patna High Court declared such marriages illegal, occurred at a government middle school at Repura in the Patepur block of the district on Wednesday.
The victim — Gautam Kumar — was appointed recently as a teacher at the government school through an examination conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC). He was teaching at the school when five to six armed persons arrived in an SUV and dragged him away.
“One person came looking for Gautam at the school. Gautam went out to meet him. Suddenly, several people pounced on him the moment he went to the person. They started dragging him to a vehicle parked nearby and thrashed him when he resisted. We started screaming and rushed out, but they sped away with him,” said eyewitness Chanda Kumari, a teacher at the same school.
Gautam’s family and acquaintances rushed to the Patepur police station after getting information about his kidnapping and registered an FIR. They also blocked the road to protest the lack of interest and urgency being shown by the police in the case.
The police then swung into action and recovered Gautam from Narayan Dedhpura village under Mahnar police station on Thursday. By that time he was married to a girl.
Gautam told the police that the girl’s father Rajesh Rai and his men had abducted him and forced him at gunpoint to get married.
“We raided a village under Mahnar police station and recovered Gautam. He was forcibly married to a girl. This seems to be a case of ‘pakadwa’ marriage. We are investigating the matter and will take further action accordingly,” Patepur SHO Shivendra Narayan said.
The principal of the school has also filed a complaint about the kidnapping of Gautam during duty hours.
Pakadwa marriages have been prevalent in Bihar for the past several decades but gained notoriety in the 1980s and 1990s.
