We can bring Kashmiri girls for marriage: Haryana CM

Guwahati, August 10, 2019:

Haryana Chief Minister, Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday stoked a major controversy by saying that girls from Kashmir can be brought for marriage after the abrogation of Article 370.

The statement was made on the success of Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao campaign in Haryana at an event in Maharishi Bhagirath Jayanti Samaroh in Fatehabad.

Khattar said, “Do you know that once Haryana was infamous as the state that killed daughters? But we started a campaign that led to an improvement in gender ratio. Earlier, there were 1,000 males to 850 females. But due to our efforts, the number of girls born per 1,000 boys has increased to 933. This is a great change, and everyone would agree to it. Dhankar used to say that we will bring girls from Bihar to marry into Haryana. Now, people are saying that doors of Kashmir have been opened and we can get girls from there. Jokes apart, but only if we are able to maintain the ratio, there'll be a balance in the society.”

The statement evoked criticism across the country and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi termed it to be “despicable”.

Reacting to the criticism, Khattar accused the media of "running a misleading and factless campaign" against him and shared on Twitter a full video of the event. He tweeted, “Daughters are our pride. The daughters of the entire country are our daughters.”

To this, the National Commission for Women chairperson Rekha Sharma took it to the social media platform and tweeted, “Why their imagination ends at women and their complexion and looks? How they open their big mouth and give these stupid remarks for women? Why people choose them to power? I certainly will ask for his explanation.”

The Delhi Commission of Women (DCW) also recommended that an FIR be filed against Khattar and demanded an action-taken report from the Delhi Police's Crime Branch by September 14.

On August 7, a BJP MLA from Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district also made similar remarks that party workers were excited over the scrapping of Article 370 as it would now enable them to marry ‘gori’ (fair) Kashmiri girls.

Join us as we continue the awareness campaign to preserve the only Ramsar site in Assam which is facing immense threats (A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention). We need your help to preserve this site of great ecological importance. Join the #LetsSaveDeeporBeel campaign and tweet about it, and do tag us on Twitter. It is time to create awareness.