Assam police have arrested 416 people across the state and registered 345 cases in the third phase of a campaign against child marriages, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Sunday.

The drive started late on Saturday night, the chief minister said, further promising to take “bold steps” against the “social evil”.

“Assam continues its fight against child marriage. In Phase 3 operations launched on the night of Dec 21-22, 416 arrests were made and 335 cases registered. The arrested individuals will be produced in court today. We will continue to take bold steps to end this social evil!” the chief minister said in a post on X.

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The Assam director general of police, Gyanendra Pratap Singh, said further arrests were likely with the state government aiming to eradicate child marriages by the end of 2025.

“The drive against child marriages in Assam continues with vigour. After two rounds of positive action in February and October 2023, the third round is being carried out since December 21, 2024. The action has resulted in positive impact on IMR, MMR and Assam’s rankings in the SDG indices,” he said on X.

Sharing some statistics on infant mortality rates (IMR) and maternal mortality rates, Singh said that the IMR was 9,472 in 2020-21, which dropped to 4,790 in 2023-24.

The MMR was 984 in 2020-21 and reduced to 372 in 2023-24, Singh said.

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Separately addressing a press conference, additional director general of police (ADGP) MP Gupta said, “Among those arrested are men who had married underage girls, family members and also two kazis, one each in Sonitpur and South Salmara districts.”

Gupta said that in the first phase of the drive in February 2023, 3,425 arrests were made and 4,387 cases registered. In the second in October 2023, 913 accused were held and 682 cases registered.

“A total of 5,348 cases have been registered and 5,842 people arrested in three special drives and regular instances of child marriages being reported since last year,” the ADGP said.

In the latest drive, Dhubri district registered the highest number of cases at 59 and also the most arrests at 68. The highest number of cases was registered in Dhubri during the first two drives as well.

While five districts reported no case of child marriage in the third drive, the number of such districts was one and four in the first two phases. Hamren is the only police district which did not report any case in the last two drives.

Gupta said chargesheet in 95% of cases from the first two phases have been filed, with convictions obtained in many cases.

The cases under this drive are being registered under Prohibition of Child Marriage (PCMA) Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act.

The state government in February last year decided to crackdown on child marriages after the National Family Health Survey-5 (NFHS-5) carried out between 2019 and 2020 showed 31.8% of women aged between 20-24 years in the northeastern state were married before the legal age of 18 years, which was higher than the national figure of 23.3%.

The drive triggered a controversy last year, with opposition leaders accusing the government of targeting one particular community through the campaign.