Court acquits youth of kidnapping minor girl

A city court has acquitted a youth of charges of kidnapping a 14-year-old girl and forcing her to marry him, relying on her testimony that she was in love with him and had accompanied him of her own free will.

Additional sessions judge J R Aryan let off Bihar resident Sillan Kumar Das after considering the girl’s statement that she knew him for the last five years and had willingly gone to Bihar with him in December last year, following which they got married.

The prosecutor had argued that as the girl was less than 18 years, there was no question of her consenting for being taken away from her parents’ custody.

“Even if the girl was a little less than 18 years, if she married the accused and had accompanied him on her own consent, then the offence of kidnapping or the more serious charge of kidnapping for some illicit purpose, cannot be held to have been made out from the evidence of the girl and other evidence,” the court said, rejecting the prosecution’s argument.

The girl’s parents had filed a complaint that their minor daughter had been kidnapped by Das on December 29 last year.

After she was rescued from Bihar, she was brought to Delhi in January this year, where she told the court that she was in love with Das.  She told the court that they got married in Bhagalpur with her consent.