Solapur police file 10 cases against kin & hosps in ‘child marriage & delivery of underage women’

Kolhapur: The Solapur city police have so far registered 10 cases involving the spouse, relatives and representatives of district civil and private hospitals in relation to "child marriage and performing deliveries of underage (below 18 years) women" from 2024 to 2026.Solapur police commissioner M Raj Kumar ruled out any forced marriage and human trafficking. He said the marriage of the underage girls in these cases were mainly because of lack of awareness about law and secondly lack of awareness about the adverse health impact on the minors' health.In the 10 cases, underage pregnant women were between 16 and 17 years of age at the time of delivery. Most of these were married when they were aged between 14 and 16 years, the CP said. The deliveries were carried out in two govt and two private hospitals between 2024 and 2026.The police said they were investigating why the relatives preferred particular hospitals for carrying out underage pregnant women and if the hospitals or the doctors there were known for hiding the fact that the underage women were victims of child marriage or not."Apart from the 10 cases, a matter each has been referred to the Valsang police in rural Solapur, Kolhapur police and the Ambegaon police in rural Pune for registration of cases and investigation," Kumar said.The CP said, "We had launched a probe after receiving a letter from the Mohol-based Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Samajik Sanstha that cited an RTI reply by the Solapur Municipal Corporation about treatment of 34 underage pregnant women at the civil and private hospitals."When asked if the civic health department had alerted police about the deliveries of these underage pregnant women, Rakhi Mane, the chief health officer of the municipal corporation, on Wednesday said, "Our staffers, through ground surveys for the purpose of institutional delivery, found the suspected underage pregnant women. These women are from poor and mostly uneducated families and they refrain from telling us where they seek treatment."He told TOI: "We handed over the data to the police. The 10 cases in which the medico legal cases were not reported to the police were the deliveries in the district civil hospital and some private hospital. Not one of them was done in our facility. We ensure registration of medico legal cases. It gets delayed only if there is a change in medical officer's transfer."CP Kumar said, "Most of these cases arose from child marriages. The medical centres, which performed the deliveries without treating the same as a medico legal case and without informing the police, are liable for prosecution, along with the families that performed child marriage."He said, "In the 10 cases, the Aadhar cards of the underage women clearly showed them as below 18 years of age at the time of delivery. It was the hospitals' duty to report. We have not filed cases against the doctors where we have found that they were misled by the relatives by showing the identity cards with wrong birth dates, in such cases doctors are not at fault."The police have invoked charges under the BNS, IPC and POCSO Acts in the 10 cases registered so far. "We have also responded to letters by the Child Welfare Committee and the State Commission for Child Rights," Kumar said.In Solapur city, four cases have been registered with the MIDC police station, followed by three at Jail Road police station and one each with the Bijapur Naka, Salgarvasti and Jodbhavipeth police stations.