Child marriage foiled in Kishoreganj

An eighth grade girl student in Hossainpur upazila, Kishoreganj, was saved by the local administration from being forced into marriage.

At 12:30 Friday afternoon, the Hossainpur assistant commissioner (land) and the executive magistrate Wahiduzzaman halted the wedding arrangements before the groom’s family arrived.

Wahiduzzaman said that preparations were on for the marriage between the girl of Pumdi union of the upazila with a 22-year-old young man of the neighbouring village. When he got the news of the wedding preparations, he set up a mobile court and fined the girl’s father Tk 1,000 for arranging the child marriage.

The groom’s family, upon hearing about the mobile court, did not turn up at the girl’s house. The officials went to the boy’s house to find that the groom had fled.

In the meantime, the girl’s father promised in writing that he would not give his daughter in marriage before she reached 18 years of age.