Collector comes to 17-year-old girl`s aid in Ooty

Udhagamandalam (TN): Nilgiris District Collector Archana Patnaik today came to the rescue of a 17-year-old girl from Pollachi in Coimbatore district who ran away from home alleging that her parents wanted to give her in marriage, without her consent.

She was sent to the Women`s Care Home at Coimbatore, officials said. The girl, who has passed her 10th exam, came to this tourist town yesterday and after sight-seeing, she reached the Information office, from where she was brought to Archana`s office last night. Hearing her plight that she was being given in marriage forcibly to a 19-year-old boy, Archana instructed to call her parents and asked the girl to stay in a Women`s Home last night, official sources said. As the girl, with gold ornaments weighing 20 sovereigns on her person, refused to go with her parents, who reached the town today, the collector directed that she be taken to a women`s care home in Coimbatore, the sources said. PTI