When Manju Devi (name changed) had eloped with her lover and later married him, she must not have imagined in her wildest of dreams that he would be, a few years later, be handed a seven year jail sentence for abducting her.
Manju, holding her two-year-old son in her lap, burst into tears, when the court of Additional Sessions Judge held the hubby Santosh Kumar guilty of abducting Manju and sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for seven years and also imposed a fine of Rs 45,000.
“I don’t want him to go to jail. I had eloped with him as I loved him and wanted to marry him. My parents had fixed my marriage with a 45 year old man,” a bitterly weeping Manju said after the verdict delivered by the court on Friday.
The judge in his order said Manju was a minor, when she had been abducted and therefore her argument that she had eloped with Santosh on her own volition was not tenable.
According to the prosecution Santosh had abducted Manju in December 2009. The police had nabbed Santosh in February 2010 from the state capital and had later traced the girl also. The parents of Manju claimed that she was only 16 when she had been abducted.
On the other hand, Manju had said in the court that she had an affair with Santosh and that he had not abducted her. She had also said they had married later and had also a child out of the wedlock.
Manju also claimed that her parents had forged her date of birth and that she was adult. Manju was later declared hostile.
The court, however, rejected Manju’s contention and said at the time of abducting she was a minor and as such the consent given by her was not legal.
The distraught wife plans to challenge the judgement in the higher court.