Chinsurah, July 27: The father of an 18-year-old boy who was to marry a 16-year-old girl in Hooghly’s Khanakul requested police this afternoon to stop the marriage, hours before it was scheduled to be held, as the girl was a minor.

An officer of Khanakul police station said it was rare that a relative had informed about a minor marriage. “Normally, local people inform us about these cases. But today, the father of the would-be groom approached us,” he said.

After getting the complaint from the boy’s father, a farmer from Bonhijli village, the officer in charge of Khanakul police station, Suman Roy Chowdhury, contacted the sub-divisional police officer of Arambagh, Shibaprasad Patra.

The SDPO asked Roy Chowdhury to speak to the block development officer of Khanakul-II immediately.

BDO Goutam Sanyal instructed the OC to send a force to the girl’s house at Dhaldanga village, where the wedding was to take place.

When Sanyal reached the venue around 3pm, he found the house decorated with flowers. Some women were helping the would-be bride to get prepared for the wedding.

The groom works in a jeweller’s shop in Mumbai and the marriage had been fixed through the girl’s cousin, who is his colleague.

The girl’s father, a farmer, had agreed to the marriage when the boy approached him in March.

A police officer who accompanied the BDO said: “The groom had arrived alone and was waiting in a room. The BDO called the girl’s father and asked for her birth certificate. The document revealed that the girl’s, a Class VIII student, was born in 1996. Sanyal told her parents that she was a minor and the minimum marriageable age for girls was 18 years.”

Calcutta High Court advocate Jayanta Narayan Chatterjee said: “According to the marriage act, both the bride and the groom would have to be at least 18 years old. The wedding will be deemed null and void if either or both of bride and groom are below 18 years. The person or persons found guilty of marrying off minors can be jailed for up to two years.”

BDO Sanyal said he explained to the law to the boy and the girl.

“I told them that this was illegal. They gave me in writing that they would not marry now. They promised to marry when the girl crosses 18,” Sanyal said.

The subdivisional officer of Arambagh, Arindam Neogi, said the BDO told the girl to continue her studies. “We can help the boy get loans to start a business in Khanakul,” he said.

The boy’s father said he was happy that his son agreed to call off the marriage.

“I had repeatedly asked him not to marry a minor but he was determined to marry the girl. I knew it was against the law. So I decided to seek the police’s help. I am happy that my son realised his mistake. I told him that I had no problem in accepting the girl as my daughter-in-law after she crosses 18,” he said.

The boy said he had come home on leave on July 17. “I have been working in Mumbai for three years. My father was against the marriage, but I did not listen to him. But after the BDO explained the law to me, I realised my mistake. I will marry the girl after two years,” he said.