Intense Raj and Rashmi stories become chartbusters — the Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak generation should relate to this — but in the real world, too, episodes of eloping couples come with a heavy price tag. Often, they lead to feuding families, disruption of social order, a trail of deception, and misery for the gullible girl.
Now, a Gujarat MLA had demanded that the government make it mandatory to have parents’ signatures in love marriages. Urging the government to intervene in love marriages, BJP MLA from Kalol, Fatehsinh Chauhan, was quoted as saying, “Marriages solemnised without the consent of parents add to the crime rate in the state and if such marriages are registered with the consent of parents, the crime rate would come down by 50%. Court marriages are registered not in the respective area but in other districts.
“The boys and girls hide their documents and marry in other districts and later either the girl suffers, or the parents have to commit suicide. Parents who are busy because of their professions cannot take care of their girls and hence anti-socials take advantage of this and elope with girls.”
He referred to several cases in Kalol where anti-social elements enticed naïve girls and kidnapped them.
Geni Thakore, the Congress MLA from Vav, raised a similar demand. “We have been demanding for a long time that changes be made in the law about love marriages. I demanded that there should be an amendment in the law and many other MLAs raised similar demands.
“We are not against love marriage but we want the change to ensure that no boys who do not get girls for marriage or have criminal backgrounds lure girls and marry them
as this leads to harassment of the girl who has to suffer in the end.
“We want that the marriage procession should come to the girl’s house as is customary and hence we want an amendment in the act which should make it compulsory to marry the girl in her village and to ensure the registration is done in the taluka where she stays and the witnesses should be from her own village only.”
She believed the amendment would shelter girls and free up the bandwidth of police who dedicate a considerable amount of time to investigate criminal cases arising out of love marriages.
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