The Freethought Party of India (FPI) said that police officers in have not yet been adequately educated and oriented about the full import of the Article 14 ( Right to Equality) and Article 21 (Right to Life and Personal Liberty).
Citizens of India do enjoy the freedom of choice in choosing their respective life partners thereby ignoring fully the caste, creed, community factors.
So love marriages are neither unethical nor against law, the FPI said referring to a case in which the AMOFOI organisation organising love marriages was harassed by Brahmapur police recently.
On February 24, Milli Pradhan of Khandayat caste, (23) of Sriram Nagar Adarsh Marg, under PS Bada Bazar, Brahmapur married her lover Uttam Kumar Sethi of SC Dhoba Caste,( 22), of same locality after having a love affair with him over a period of 5 year. Since it was a case of high caste girl choosing to marry a young man of the Dalit family the old-fashioned parents lodged a police complaint against the Uttam.
On February 26 the Brahmapur Crime Branch Police Inspector investigating the case wanted to collect from the AMOFOI authorities the names of the witnesses of the marriage of Milli and Uttam. He was informed that in view of Corona pandemic the AMOFOI staff members are acting as witnesses. Then the inspector asked the AMOFOI authorities as to how it was conducting the marriages without the permission of parents.
"This reveals the feudal attitude of the police personnel in Odisha and their abysmal ignorance about the laws of the land in favour of love marriage.
These officers should be given special training on Citizen’s Right to Equality (Art.14) and Right to Life and Personal Liberty (Art 21)," said FPI. “Right to Personal Liberty” means the Right to love and the Right to have love marriage.
This basic knowledge of humanism has not been imparted to our police officers," said FPI general secretary B Ramchandra CST Voltaire.
Besides, parental permission is not at all necessary in such marriage as the Supreme Court has re-emphasized on this when it decided the Kerala Hadiya Case on March 8, 2018.
" This Constitutional position is not being respected by the police authorities till date. Lovers are being treated as criminals. FPI strongly condemns this approach of the police," added Voltaire.
