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[TD="class: articleTitle"]Groom kidnappings: A blot on India's Bihar
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[TD]Poor and unable to find grooms for their daughters, many still seize men at gunpoint in what is known as pakadwa shaadi.
Sonu Kumar was in perfect bliss, enjoying a break from his job as a clerk with the Indian army, when things suddenly went horribly wrong.
On his way to the railway station in India's eastern Bihar state to buy his return ticket to work, he was abducted by four armed masked men and bundled into a waiting car that whisked him away.
He was shocked and shaken by the unexpected turn of events. But more unexpected surprises were in store for him. Unlike kidnappers who normally extract ransom, his tormentors made an unusual demand: marry a girl waiting patiently at a decorated venue in Saharsa village.
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Sonu had little choice. He married the girl, as was demanded of him. "Once the marriage ceremony was over, the girl’s family was assured that there was no escape route for me," he says. Whoever said marriages were made in heaven was wrong. For Sonu, it was a nightmare.
Hundreds of others like him are pushed into such nightmares annually in Bihar at gunpoint. Locally known as pakadwa shaadi (marriage by kidnap), the state recorded 2,529 of them in 2013, compared to 1,337 in 2009.
Anand Kumar Singh, the police chief of Madhepura district, admits that such kidnappings of potential grooms happen at regular intervals. "It is mainly prevalent among Bhumihars and Yadavas castes," he says.
Not long ago, Bihar with its back-breaking poverty, wretched infrastructure, poor literacy and endemic corruption, had acquired notoriety within the country as a basket case. Its records have improved somewhat in recent years, but the province still ranks as one of the poorest in the country.
Read more on link below...
Groom kidnappings: A blot on India's Bihar - Features - Al Jazeera English
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[TD="class: articleTitle"]Groom kidnappings: A blot on India's Bihar
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[TD]Poor and unable to find grooms for their daughters, many still seize men at gunpoint in what is known as pakadwa shaadi.
Sonu Kumar was in perfect bliss, enjoying a break from his job as a clerk with the Indian army, when things suddenly went horribly wrong.
On his way to the railway station in India's eastern Bihar state to buy his return ticket to work, he was abducted by four armed masked men and bundled into a waiting car that whisked him away.
He was shocked and shaken by the unexpected turn of events. But more unexpected surprises were in store for him. Unlike kidnappers who normally extract ransom, his tormentors made an unusual demand: marry a girl waiting patiently at a decorated venue in Saharsa village.
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Sonu had little choice. He married the girl, as was demanded of him. "Once the marriage ceremony was over, the girl’s family was assured that there was no escape route for me," he says. Whoever said marriages were made in heaven was wrong. For Sonu, it was a nightmare.
Hundreds of others like him are pushed into such nightmares annually in Bihar at gunpoint. Locally known as pakadwa shaadi (marriage by kidnap), the state recorded 2,529 of them in 2013, compared to 1,337 in 2009.
Anand Kumar Singh, the police chief of Madhepura district, admits that such kidnappings of potential grooms happen at regular intervals. "It is mainly prevalent among Bhumihars and Yadavas castes," he says.
Not long ago, Bihar with its back-breaking poverty, wretched infrastructure, poor literacy and endemic corruption, had acquired notoriety within the country as a basket case. Its records have improved somewhat in recent years, but the province still ranks as one of the poorest in the country.
Read more on link below...
Groom kidnappings: A blot on India's Bihar - Features - Al Jazeera English
,this is not a new thing here
