KOLKATA: At a time when the whole country is focused on fighting the coronavirus pandemic, a 16-year-old girl in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district had an entirely different battle to fight — the one to stop her premature marriage. Her father, Akram Sheikh, is a migrant worker who had recently returned from Odisha after work dried up there as a result of the lockdown.
Akram feared that he wouldn’t be able to get a job in the near future due to the ongoing crisis. He thought that he would end up spending all his savings and soon wouldn’t have any money left for his daughter’s marriage. So, he secretly fixed her marriage. The daughter came to know about it from a neighbour just two hours before the groom was to arrive on Friday.
She immediately dialed the local block development officer and informed him about her plight. "I came to know from one of our neighbours that the arrangements were made for my wedding. I was shocked. I somehow collected the number of the local BDO’s office and informed them. It was because I want to continue my studies," said the teenage girl who is a student of Class X.
Block development officer Saurav Ghosh said when he and his team arrived, the groom and his relatives fled the scene. "The father of the girl gave a written declaration that his daughter would not be forced to marry," said Ghosh.
"I don’t know when I will start working and earn money again. I learned that labourers like me would not job for the next six months. I feared all the money that I earned in Odisha would get spent during the crisis. As there is no hope of getting a job soon, I wanted to spend earning for my daughter’s wedding," Akram said.
The man was on home quarantine
Girl’s father Akram Sheikh returned home from Odisha on March 27. Doctors at a local healthcare centre examined him and suggested that he quarantine himself at home