Brokers paid up to Rs 1.5 lakh to fix alliance with tribal girls in Wayanad

Wayanad: Marriage brokers who facilitated alliances of men from other districts with underage tribal girls in Wayanad tampered with birth certificates and pocketed up to Rs 1.5 lakh for a wedding, according to police.

This has come to light in the wake of the recent arrest of a marriage broker who had taken the initiative to marry off a minor girl from a tribal hamlet to a man from Vadakara. A tribal organisation in Ambalavayal had filed a complaint at the police station against the marriage brokers from North Malabar who came to Wayanad to find underage brides for men from other communities and districts

Wayanad Integrated Tribal Development Officer (ITDP) G Pramod said that an inquiry is on, and the tribal promoters are alerted on the issue of the existence of such a racket that targets underage girls.

Wayanad Special Mobile Squad (SMS) DySP M Abdul Karim said that earlier, too, there was a trend of marrying off tribal girls from Wayanad to youngsters and middle-aged men who had failed to find partners in neighbouring districts. Local people called these marriages Kuttiadi Kalyanam (Kalyanam means Marriage in Malayalam) as the place Kuttiadi, close to Wayanad district in Kozhikode, was the hub of brokers from both Wayanad and other districts. Middlemen from both districts meet at Kuttiyadi, strike deals, exchange photographs of prospective brides and bridegrooms and fix the commission for each.

“We have recovered the mobile phone of the broker from which we had collected the contacts of many tribal parents and brokers from other districts and also recovered photographs of many young men and tribal girls,” Abdul Karim said.

A survey of the State Kudumbasree Mission had found that as many as 34 such marriages were held at Tirunelli panchayat. Three young women had returned home as they found it tough to live in their husbands' houses, according to the survey.

In most cases, the family of the tribal girl was persuaded to give their daughter to the other unknown family after tall promises of money and other things. The marriage brokers managed to get Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh from the family of the bridegroom.

Manikantan, a young activist from the Paniya tribal community, said that the trend would gradually spell doom for their clans as, even now, the tribal youngsters find it hard to get brides in their communities. The activists also expressed concerns as to why the state was not at all serious in bringing in legislation to ensure that no tribal woman would be exploited through such inter-regional, inter-caste marriages.