Kendrapada: A 21-year-old woman delivered a baby boy just four days after her marriage, leading to a police investigation that culminated in the arrest of her brother-in-law on rape charges in Jagatsinghpur district.The woman, who married on July 2, complained of severe abdominal pain at her in-laws’ house on Sunday. She was taken to the district headquarters hospital in Jagatsinghpur, where doctors found that she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. She subsequently gave birth to a healthy baby boy.“It was a normal delivery and both the mother and the newborn are stable,” additional district medical officer (ADMO) Dr Saroj Jena said. He added that the woman was admitted with acute abdominal pain and medical examination revealed her pregnancy before the delivery.The development came as a shock to the woman’s husband, his family and local residents, who said they were unaware of her pregnancy at the time of the marriage.Following the delivery, the woman’s father lodged an FIR, alleging that his younger daughter had been repeatedly raped by her elder sister’s husband over the past year, resulting in the pregnancy.Police registered a case under Section 64 (rape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and arrested the accused on Monday. He was produced in a local court, which rejected his bail plea and remanded him to judicial custody, police said.Meanwhile, the woman’s husband alleged that she had concealed her pregnancy before the marriage. He said his family was unwilling to accept either the woman or the newborn after learning about the circumstances and had asked her parents to take them back.Legal experts said Section 12(1)(d) of the Hindu Marriage Act allows a court to annul a marriage if the wife was pregnant by another person at the time of marriage. However, the husband cannot legally desert or abandon his wife without following due legal process, advocate Subash Nayak said.
