Guwahati: With the G20 Summit ending in New Delhi on Sunday, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that the state government will resume its campaign against child marriage.
“Six months back, I arrested 5,000 people for child marriage in Assam. I was waiting for the G20 to end. Now in the next 10 days, I will arrest 2,000-3,000 men for child marriage. Because we have to eradicate it (child marriage). There is a law that this should not happen. And if it continues to happen, daughters from a particular group will never progress. They will keep on getting exploited,” Biswa Sarma said at the concluding session of the national executive meeting of BJP women’s wing.
Biswa Sarma also reiterated that he plans to bring in a law to end polygamy in the state by the end of this year, emphasising that this wasn’t an anti-Muslim move as some people accused.
“I believe that by ending (triple) talaq, child marriage, and polygamy, the amount of work that we are doing for the Muslims, no Congress government has done before had done it before,” said Biswa Sarma.
A committee, set up in May to examine the state legislature’s competence to enact a law to outlaw polygamy, submitted its report last week. The CM said that the panel, headed by retired Guwahati High Court judge Rumi Phukan, had confirmed that the state was competent to consider the bill.
