A young couple who went on a date in a village orchard ended up marrying each other within a few hours, with unsolicited help from police and in the presence of their relatives and other villagers on Wednesday said a report by the Hindustan Times. This incident took place in Badaura village of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

Police marries the couple off

25-year-old Yugal Bihari Prajapati and Reena Prajapati, 23, were spotted by locals who accused them of obscenity and called the police up. The couple was taken to the police station. It was at the police station they revealed that they had been in a relationship for two years. They had planned to marry in March. Though the police had something else in their mind. They decided to get them married off at a nearby temple.

“They were sitting in a garden when the locals informed us. A police team brought them to the station. A police team brought them to the station. They told they wanted to marry, so we arranged their marriage with their parents’ consent,” Jansa Station in-charge Anil Kumar Singh said.  Village head Shivprakash Singh, who persuaded the couple’s parents to agree to the swift wedding said, “The parents of the bride gave Rs 1 as ‘shagun’ to the man’s family.”

Police personnel had made all the arrangements for the ceremony. Anil Singh further said, “It was a dowry-free marriage. The couple happily left for their home.”

Although, for the couple, the feeling is yet to sink in. Yugal is an employee of a private company in Mumbai. He told the Hindustan Times, “I had never imagined I would get married in such a manner. What is interesting is that police made all the arrangements for the marriage. The love of my life is with me and I will take her to Mumbai.”

The Logical Indian Take

Yugal and Reena were two adult human beings who have the freedom to sit in a park at a date. The fact that the couple is happy and the marriage was a completely dowry-free one does not change the underlying problem, that this was a case of moral policing. The police instead of restoring law and order in the country are getting couples married off, which indicates to the problematic area of moral policing! The duties of the police certainly do not include moral policing. The Logical Indian perturbed by such acts of moral policing and appeals to the concerned authority to ensure that such activities are curbed.