By Sujeet Kumar, IANS,
Raipur : A marriage was solemnized inside a jail in Chhattisgarh when an 18-year-old rape victim walked in with her parents and officials hurried to arrange the wedding, going by the orders of a court.
The rape accused Sheshmal Pare, 26, who was behind bars for over a year as an undertrial, is set to walk free within a day or two. The rape victim had requested a local court to set the accused free as she wanted to marry him.
“It’s the first ever case of a marriage being solemnized inside a jail in Chhattisgarh. Once the rape victim informed a local court Wednesday that she wanted to marry the accused because she loved him, the court asked jail authorities to arrange the marriage urgently in the presence of advocates,” Sant Kumar Paswan, director general of the jail, told IANS.
The two are from Raipur district’s diamond rich area of Devbhog bordering Orissa, some 200 km from here. Both are construction workers.
K.K. Gupta, Raipur jail superintendent, said that some Arya Samaj members worked with jail authorities to arrange the marriage in the presence of prosecution and defence layers.
He added that the bride’s parents presented a set of kitchen utensils as a ‘marriage gift’, bought with money from the jail welfare fund.
Gupta claimed the couple had been in love and it was the girl’s parents who had levelled the rape charge. Police arrested Sheshmal in June 2008 and kept him at a sub-jail for a brief period and then shifted him to Raipur Central jail.