KRISHNAGIRI: The Health department has lodged a complaint against the family of a child marriage victim for tampering her Aadhar card near Denkanikottai on Wednesday.
According to Health department sources, "Sadhana (name changed) (18) near Rayakottai in Kelamangalam block was married at the age of 14 and delivered a baby at the age of 15.
In this case, she was pregnant for a second time and when she tried to register her pregnancy details on the Pregnancy and Infant Cohort Monitoring and Evaluation (PICME) data of the Tamil Nadu government in February, health staff allegedly warned her about reporting the case of teenage pregnancy to the police as her age was still 17, as per records.
Following this, she absconded to her native village in Kelamangalam block."
"Following the alert from Krishnagiri block, the Kelamangalam block health team visited Sadhana's house three times since this February but she was not found.
We later found out that she had registered her pregnancy in April at Haleseebam health sub-centre in Shoolagiri block after tampering with her Aadhar card, changing her age to 23," sources added.
Haleseebam health staff failed to inform Shoolagiri Block Medical Officer (BMO) Dr S Raghavendara Kumar for many months. Ten days ago, Kelamangalam Block Medical Officer Dr C Rajesh Kumar alerted his Shoolagiri counterpart about the issue.
Based on this information, a team led by Raghavendra Kumar verified Sadhana's age by visiting her school which revealed that she was around 18-years-old. When they enquired about the age specified on the Aadhar card, the victim's family allegedly said that the changes were made in Rayakottai.
On Tuesday night, Shoolagiri BMO team went to lodge a complaint at Uddanapalli police station and they were asked to file the complaint at Denkanikottai All Womens Police Station. On Wednesday, when the team went again, they were asked to file a complaint at Uddanapalli.
When TNIE contacted Krishnagiri SP GS Anitha, she said that Uddanapalli police will file the complaint. In June 2025, TNIE carried an article, 'Bride and prejudice: Aadhaar fudged to mask child marriages in K'giri', which explained how the date of birth in Aadhaar card of six child marriage victims were changed by their relatives, to evade arrest in child marriage. Following this, child marriage cases were booked and cases were filed on two browsing centres for tampering.