Marriage Solemnised Between Rape Victim and Rapist in Jail
In compliance with court order, a marriage was solemnized in a jail in Chhattisgarh between an 18-year-old rape victim and an undertrial accused of raping her.
According to reports, the rape accused Sheshmal Pare, 26, has been in jail for over a year now as an undertrial and is going to be released in a day or two, for the rape victim had petitioned a local court to set him 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,” IANS quoted Sant Kumar Paswan, director general of the jail, as saying.
Both of them construction workers, they belong to diamond rich area of Devbhog bordering Orissa, some 200 kms from Raipur.
KK 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 that 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.
