Three minor girls brought from Gujarat were rescued in Ujjain district on Wednesday from being forced into child marriage after the Madhya Pradesh Commission for Protection of Child Rights (MPCPCR) was alerted by a message sent through mobile phone.
In a similar case, marriage of a minor girl at Dabra block in Gwalior was also prevented by the Commission which received an SMS informing about the incident.
MPCPCR has taken steps on Tuesday to publicise the mobile numbers of the commission members so that common people could alert the commission about any child marriage being done in any part of the State.
On the very first day after the decision, the commission received several messages about child marriages.MPCPCR Chairperson Usha Chaturvedi informed that the commission alerted the respective district administrations to prevent such things from happening.
Earlier, waking to the directions issued by the Supreme Court last year, MPCPCR has issued notices to all district Collectors in the State to keep strict vigil for prevention of child marriages.
"The Collectors have been directed that they should deploy observers in places where marriages are being solemnised collectively in large numbers, through non-governmental organisations (NGO) or by the caste groups. Often there are chances of child marriages being done on such occasions."
"The Collectors have been asked to ensure that the birth certificates of all the persons who are to be married should be kept at the place for reference in case of any dispute," Chaturvedi told.
She further said that the commission has issued this directive following guidelines of Supreme Court that were issued in its judgment last year.
All the members of MPCPCR have been given responsibility to ensure implementation of its directive in the divisions allotted to them for the purpose.
Accordingly, Jabalpur has been allotted Rina Gujjar, Rewa to Asha Yadav, Chambal and Gwalior to Vijaya Shukla, Indore to Rita Upmanyu, Narmadapuram to Vibhanshu Joshi and Ujjain to RS lata.