Patna: A teenager in Bihar committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan hours after he was forced to marry his dead brother’s wife, officials said on Wednesday.
Mahadeva Das, a grade nine student had refused to marry his sister-in-law, Ruby Devi, who was 10 years older than him, claiming he considered her as a mother figure.
The incident took place in Vinova Nagar in the Gaya district, 100km east of Patna, on Monday night but was reported to the police on Tuesday.
Devi’s parents insisted on solemnising the wedding soon after Das’s brother’s death.
Eventually, the matter reached the local village court following which the families were ordered to get Das and Devi married at a local temple in the village.
On Monday, the wedding was solemnised in the presence of villagers — a clear violation of the state government’s campaign against child marriage.
A group of villagers present during the wedding ceremony even volunteered to be signatories to validate the marriage.
Shortly after the wedding, Das rushed home, locked himself in a room and hanged himself from the ceiling fan using a towel.
The family, thinking that Das wanted to rest after the tiresome wedding rituals, decided not to disturb him and only realised that he was dead the next morning.
“I saw his body hanging from the roof in the morning and raised an alarm. We rushed him to a local hospital where the doctors declared him dead,” Das’s father, Chandra Shekhar Das, told Gulf News on Wednesday.
The police have registered a case against the families and are probing the matter.
“We are investigating the case. Local villagers said that the family members had performed his marriage against his wishes,” a local police official Manish Kumar told Gulf News.
The official added a separate case had also been registered under various sections of the child marriage act and for forcing the teenager to commit suicide.
