Kochi, July 20: Poor Muslim women in Kerala are increasingly becoming victims of an organised network of touts which arranges their weddings to aged married men from neighbouring Maldives.
“There is an organised network of touts and middlemen who arrange such weddings,” social worker and Latin Catholic Aikya Vedi President Tony Oliver said.
The women return home soon after their marriage, complaining of ill-treatment, he said.
Last week, police swooped down on a wedding in Thiruvanathapuram and arrested a 43-year-old groom, Haroon Abdul Rasheed, when he came to the hut of a 17-year-old bride to exchange wedding vows.
Rasheed had come to Thiruvananthapuram from Maldives for medical treatment and identified a “suitable” bride through a tout.
A case has been registered against the ‘groom’ under the Child Marriage Restraint act, 1929 and sect 420 IPC (Cheating) and he has been remanded to custody, police said.
-Agencies