Team Herald
MARGAO: There are increasing numbers of cases, where minor girls, thinking that they are in love with someone and facing their parental objection, run away from the parental house and live with their so called boyfriend with the police not taking any action against the boy’s parents.
In 2017, four such cases where a minor girl fled from her parental house and lived with someone else, were registered in four police stations of South Goa and in all four cases the minor victims were traced outside Goa.
In the case registered in August at Cuncolim police station, a 16-year-old girl was traced at her relative’s house in Wakurd, Maharashtra while in the case registered at Ponda police station, a 15-year-old girl was traced at Jharkhand. In the two cases registered at Vasco Police Station a 13-year-old-girl was traced at Shimla in Himachal Pradesh and another 14-year-old girl was traced at Virar in Mumbai.
The police have registered cases for kidnapping and punishment for kidnapping, rape, wrongful confinement, extortion and criminal intimidation against the accused who is the so called boyfriend of the minor girl.
While Section 8(2) of the Goa Children’s Act that deals with abuse or sexual assault of a minor has been invoked, the police have failed to book the adults under Section 8(4) which makes it criminal for any person to keep a minor girl not related by blood in their house.
Bailancho Ekvott President Auda Viegas castigates the police for not invoking Section 8(4) of the Goa Children’s Act and argues that if the police act sternly then cases of girls getting shelter in the boy’s house will drop and the minor children will actually get proper relief.
“It is indeed a punishment for the minor girl who misguided with the so called love affair does not wish to live with her parents and is sent to a remand house which is like punishing her but letting the boy’s parents go scot free even though they violated the law,” said Auda.
She further said that this trend is on the rise and while the police may have registered only four cases last year, she is aware of at least one dozen such cases that occurred in many places of which she was the counsellor and the parents did not lodge a complaint with the police as the child was traced and brought back home.
Superintendent of Police Arvind Gawas, while pointing out that in these cases the girl lives with the boy willingly and hence it is with a consent because of which maybe the police have not invoked Section 8(4) of the Act.
He also pointed out that family members most often gang up to tell lies and mislead the police just to protect the family name and honour. “Most often the girl’s parents state that the child was living with her uncle or aunt and the relatives corroborate that statement because of family honour and name,” he said.
“The police will not hesitate to act in genuine cases where a person has been actually kidnapped but in these cases it is a technical kidnap because the girl is a minor,” he said in defence of the police.
He, however, agreed to discuss the matter with the police and see that Section 8(4) is invoked in future.
