An 11-year-old girl was rescued yesterday from an attempted under-age marriage at Gopalpur village in Tala upazila as her fellow students took to the streets in protest. The students of Tala Model High School submitted a memorandum to Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO) Mohammad Waliullah Mia requesting him to save Putul Rani Das, a student of class six of the school, from an under-age marriage with a 20-year-old youth of a neighbouring village. The UNO summoned the girl's father, Ganesh Chandra Das, a cobbler, to his office and asked him to cancel the wedding scheduled for next Sunday. Ganesh complied with the UNO's instructions and signed a bond stating that he would not arrange any under-age marriage in future.
Putul on Monday told her classmates that her father fixed the date of her marriage next Sunday, but she dared not protest it. Her classmates tried to persuade her father Ganesh to cancel the wedding in vain. Later, over 200 students of the school took to the streets and submitted a memorandum to the UNO requesting him to intervene on Wednesday. UNO Mohammad Waliullah Mia confirmed the incident.