Gorakhpur (UP), Dec 31 (PTI) Police here arrested a man on charge of kidnapping and forcibly marrying a 17-year-old girl.

In November, a girl was kidnapped and on a written complaint of her father, a search operation was launched.

During investigation, it came to light that the accused belonging to another community kidnapped the girl, who was rescued on Wednesday, police said.

Accused Mansoor (26), a resident of Hamirpur district, was arrested from the Bhiti Rawat area, police added.

Though the accused claimed that the girl is an adult on the basis of an Aadhaar card and also asked police not to interfere in the matter, the girl's father presented her high school certificate, which showed her age to be 17 years, police said.

“The girl is undergoing a medical check-up. As per her high school marksheet, she is 17-year-old,” Sahjanwa police station SHO Santosh Yadav said.

The man has been booked under Sections 363 (kidnapping) and 366 (abducting or inducing woman to compel her for marriage) of the IPC, he said, adding that a section of the new law on forced conversion will be added, if required.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)