The husband received a call from the Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) within five minutes of lodging a complaint and his newly wed wife, held captive by her sister and brother-in-law in neighbouring Ghaziabad of Uttar Pradesh, was rescued within two days.

The Delhi-based gym owner had sent an email to the DCW on November 23, mentioning that his wife, a 24-year-old woman who belongs to another faith, was being held against her will.

Within five minutes the youth, who married the woman at a temple in April after eight years of courtship and without informing her parents who disapproved of the relationship, received a call from the commission.

“After marriage, we had gone back to our respective homes and tried to convince our parents. This month my wife went incommunicado and I learnt that she had not turned up at the hospital where she works. A DCW counsellor who works out at my gym asked me to call their 181 helpline and then call 100 to file a police complaint…. I emailed the DCW and they responded so fast that I did not need to call up the police,” he told The Telegraph.

On November 25 (Sunday) the youth was called to East Delhi’s Ghazipur police station, under whose jurisdiction his wife’s house falls.

After questioning him in the presence of DCW counsellors, the police sent a small team with the counsellors to the woman’s home where they soon found themselves sieged by locals from her community.

“We have handled three such major cases this month alone. We always need the police, and it is rare for family members to immediately relent. Invariably caste and religion come before the law for them. When you are surrounded, the best move is to exit and call them to the police station,” DCW member Kiran Negi told this newspaper.

The police told the family to produce their daughter, wherever she was, or face legal action.

When she turned up within hours, she said she had been kept confined at Khoda village in Ghaziabad and that she was to be forced into marriage two days later.

“Her parents are not a problem, it is her sister and brother-in-law who confined her although I had bought them a scooter, a laptop and a mobile phone. My family is not accepting her either, so we have moved into a separate flat,” the young husband said.

Negi said the police had been asked to protect the couple at home and at their work places.

“The girl is particularly under threat. Normally in inter-religious marriages, the families don’t want normalisation of ties although in this case the girl is in touch with her mother…,” Negi said.

The DCW has made similar rescues in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Another woman who had been held captive for seven years in Haryana by her parents who got her divorced without her being present in court was reunited with her former husband by the DCW.