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Kidnapped Grooms: When Indian Men are Forced to Marry

Kidnapping grooms is a phenomenon that plagues some parts of India. (Reuters)
Kidnapping grooms is a phenomenon that plagues some parts of India. (Reuters)
    Patna, London - Asharq Al-Awsat
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Kidnapped Grooms: When Indian Men are Forced to Marry

Kidnapping grooms is a phenomenon that plagues some parts of India. (Reuters)
Kidnapping grooms is a phenomenon that plagues some parts of India. (Reuters)

Cars with loudspeakers playing loud Indian pop songs fill the streets. Drummers and firecrackers add further jubilation to this scene, which is very common during the wedding season in Patna city, capital of the Indian Northern State of Bihar.

However, Vinod Kumar, a 29-year-old engineer does not feel comfortable at all because he was kidnapped and forced to get married.

Kumar, who was rescued by the police, said: “I want this marriage to be annulled.”

He called for punishing those who kidnapped and forced him to get married, reported the German News Agency (dpa).

Kumar arrived in Patna from neighboring Jharkhand state in early December to attend a friend's wedding. That same evening, under violent threats, he was forced to marry a woman he had never met, and fell victim to the so-called “kidnapped grooms” phenomenon.

In January 2017, while Kumar's father lay in a coma, a man called Surender introduced himself at the hospital as a family friend. Kumar kept in touch with the man after his father’s death. When Kumar was on his way to his friend’s wedding, he was invited to Surender’s house for tea.

Suddenly, the host forcibly tied Kumar with the help of several members of his family, took his cell phone and locked him in a room. "I asked him, what do you want from me? And he answered that I have to marry his sister." The “groom” added that his kidnappers, who were armed, beat him and threatened to kill him if he did not respond to their demands.

Kumar is one of about 3,400 grooms who were kidnapped last year in Bihar, a poor state with a population of more than 100 million, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported.

Police say they have no accurate statistics on the groom kidnappings cases, but confirmed that men in Bihar are often abducted and forced to marry.

"The problem was at its worst after an agricultural crisis in the 1980s," said Rubitch, head of local charity Kushish. At that time, sons of poor farmers began to go to school, receive their education and then get good jobs, which made them very desirable husbands. At the same time, families of young women were no longer able to afford the dowry, an amount paid by the bride's family to the groom to complete the marriage.

This practice has been banned in India since 1961, but it is still widespread. The marriage of sons and daughters is a matter of great importance to Indian families.

Some parents in the state of Bihar hire gangsters to kidnap grooms, or sometimes they do it themselves and the marriage takes place under gun threat.

Marriage often lasts, especially with the social pressures that consider it a "sacred bond" that is difficult to break.

While kidnappings are less common now, people like Kumar still face such a threat. Kumar was a "good prey" to the hijackers because of his job as a junior director of a state-owned steel company, and especially since the bride was over 40, and it was difficult to find her a groom.

Kumar appeared in a YouTube video, weeping as he was tied around his wedding rites, and his bride, who did not seem pleased, stood next to him. He was not talking to her.

"I would have felt the same if I was forced to marry a buffalo," he said.

He said that he spent the wedding night locked in the house and the kidnappers called his brother the next morning to inform him Kumar had gotten married voluntarily. His brother was suspicious and went to the police, who were complicit with the captors, according to his family. The police reportedly came to Surender’s house and declared that the groom should accept the marriage or be harmed.

Kumar said other policemen came to the house the following night and released him after his relatives and friends released details of the case on social media and local television.

Kumar fled, as there was no certificate that forces him to accept his marriage to that woman. The kidnappers, however, have not been brought to justice, and Surender continues to contact Kumar and threaten him, he says.

Kumar recently returned to Patna seeking justice from the Bihar State Commission for Human Rights. He said he was traumatized by the experience. Despite the kidnapping, Kumar said he is interested in marriage. "I want a natural marriage, arranged by my family.”

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Varieties

French Teen in Straw Licking Case Allowed to Leave Singapore

French teenager Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien arrives for an application to leave jurisdiction, for the court's permission to leave Singapore, at the State Courts in Singapore on April 29, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
French teenager Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien arrives for an application to leave jurisdiction, for the court's permission to leave Singapore, at the State Courts in Singapore on April 29, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
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French Teen in Straw Licking Case Allowed to Leave Singapore

French teenager Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien arrives for an application to leave jurisdiction, for the court's permission to leave Singapore, at the State Courts in Singapore on April 29, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
French teenager Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien arrives for an application to leave jurisdiction, for the court's permission to leave Singapore, at the State Courts in Singapore on April 29, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)

A French teen facing criminal charges in Singapore for a straw licking stunt was granted permission on Wednesday to leave the country for three weeks on pledges to return.

The 18-year-old is accused of posting to social media a video of himself putting the straw he licked back into the dispenser on an orange juice vending machine.

Didier Gaspard Owen Maximilien's clip went viral and triggered a backlash that led to his arrest in Singapore, which has a reputation for not tolerating bad behavior.

The teen's lawyer sought permission from a judge for him to travel to Manila from May 2-25 for an internship, a key requirement for him to graduate, AFP reported.

The judge granted the request after the prosecution posed no objection, but asked that he must remain contactable while overseas and required a SG$5,000 ($3,900) bond.

His next appearance in the Singapore court was also rescheduled from May 22 to May 29.

The teen, who is studying in Singapore and is out on bail, was charged last Friday over the straw stunt.

He uploaded the video on Instagram knowing that it "would or would probably cause annoyance to the public", according to court documents.

The public nuisance offence carries a jail term of up to three months and a fine.

A second charge of committing mischief said Maximilien knew that he was "likely to cause wrongful loss or damage" to iJooz, the company operating the vending machine which had to replace all 500 straws in the dispenser.

The mischief offence carries a punishment of up to two years in jail on conviction and a fine, according to the charge sheet.

Both offences were allegedly committed on March 12.

The Straits Times newspaper said the video "quickly went viral, sparking shock and concern among netizens".

Varieties

Researchers: Tropical Forest Loss Eases After Record Year

Vehicles drive on a fully paved section of BR-156 highway that connects the state capital Macapa with the city of Oiapoque, Amapa state, Brazil, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
Vehicles drive on a fully paved section of BR-156 highway that connects the state capital Macapa with the city of Oiapoque, Amapa state, Brazil, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
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Researchers: Tropical Forest Loss Eases After Record Year

Vehicles drive on a fully paved section of BR-156 highway that connects the state capital Macapa with the city of Oiapoque, Amapa state, Brazil, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
Vehicles drive on a fully paved section of BR-156 highway that connects the state capital Macapa with the city of Oiapoque, Amapa state, Brazil, Monday, March 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

The pace of tropical forest destruction slowed in 2025 after record losses the year before but remained at worrying levels equivalent to 11 football fields per minute, researchers said Wednesday.

The world lost 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) of tropical primary rainforest last year -- down 36 percent from 2024, said researchers from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland.

"A drop of this scale in a single year is encouraging -- it shows what decisive government action can achieve," said Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of WRI's Global Forest Watch platform.

"But part of the decline reflects a lull after an extreme fire year," Goldman said.

The researchers also warned that fires fueled by climate change have become a "dangerous new normal" which threatens to reverse the recent gains made by government efforts to tackle deforestation.

The warming El Nino weather phenomenon is expected to return in the middle of the year, which could push global temperatures even higher, raising the threat of heatwaves, droughts and wildfires.

The researchers, who used satellite data for their report, noted that last year's forest loss was still significant -- about the size of Denmark and 46 percent higher than a decade ago.

Despite last year's progress, global forest loss remains 70 percent above the level required to meet the 2030 goal of halting and reversing forest loss, the researchers said.

"A good year is a good year, but you need good years forever if you're going to conserve, for example, the tropical rainforest," Matthew Hansen, director of the GLAD Lab at the University of Maryland, said in a media briefing.

Much of last year's slowdown was due to sharp declines in Brazil, home to the biggest rainforest in the world.

Brazil's forest loss, excluding fires, was 41 percent lower than in 2024 -- its lowest rate on record.

"Brazil's declines are associated with stronger environmental policies and enforcement since President Lula took office in 2023," Goldman said in a news briefing, referring to Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Lula relaunched an anti-deforestation action plan and increased penalties for environmental crimes, AFP quoted her as saying.

But the country's forests are still threatened by agriculture, which remains the largest driver of forest loss to make room for soy fields and cattle ranches.

Some states in the Amazon have passed legislation to weaken environmental protections, the researchers said.

"Several countries showed that strong policy action can reduce forest loss quickly," Goldman said.

Forest loss in neighboring Colombia fell 17 percent, the second lowest year on record since 2016, thanks to government policies and agreements limiting forest clearing.

Government policies also helped to limit forest loss in Indonesia, where it increased by 14 percent but was well below the highs seen a decade ago.

In Malaysia, government efforts have helped to stabilize forest loss in the country.

Tropical forest loss remained high in other parts of the world, including in Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon and Madagascar, the researchers said.

Global tree cover loss fell by 14 percent last year.

While agricultural expansion is still the leading driver of tree cover loss across the tropics, fires played a major role worldwide, accounting for 42 percent of the destruction.

"For the past three years, fires burned more than twice as much tree cover as they did two decades ago," Goldman said.

While humans cause most fires in the tropics, climate change is intensifying natural fire cycles in northern and temperate regions, the researchers said.

Canada had its second-worst fire year on record last year as wildfires tore through 5.3 million hectares of forest.

"Climate change and land clearing have shortened the fuse on global forest fires," Hansen said. "They are turning seasonal disturbances into a near-permanent state of emergency."

Varieties

Europe Climate Report Signals Rising Extremes

(FILES) This photograph shows the scientific ice-going "Kronprins Haakon" sailing through the sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Olivier MORIN / AFP)
(FILES) This photograph shows the scientific ice-going "Kronprins Haakon" sailing through the sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Olivier MORIN / AFP)
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Europe Climate Report Signals Rising Extremes

(FILES) This photograph shows the scientific ice-going "Kronprins Haakon" sailing through the sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Olivier MORIN / AFP)
(FILES) This photograph shows the scientific ice-going "Kronprins Haakon" sailing through the sea ice in eastern Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard archipelago, on April 10, 2025. (Photo by Olivier MORIN / AFP)

Europe endured a historic heatwave across Nordic countries, shrinking glaciers and record sea temperatures in 2025 as the fast-warming continent faces more frequent climate extremes, a new report showed Wednesday.

"The climate indicators ... are quite worrying," Mauro Facchini, a European Commission official, told journalists.

The European State of the Climate report underscores the urgent need for the region to adapt to global warming and accelerate its transition to clean energy, another EU official said, according to AFP.

Here are some key findings of the report published by the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO):

At least 95 percent of the region experienced above-average annual temperatures, with Britain, Norway and Iceland recording their warmest year on record, according to the report.

"Since 1980, Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average, making it the fastest warming continent on Earth," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a briefing on the report.

"Heatwaves are becoming more frequent and severe. And in 2025, we saw long duration heatwaves from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Circle," Saulo said.

Sub-Arctic Finland, Norway and Sweden -- a region dubbed Fennoscandia -- experienced a record three-week heatwave in July, with temperatures reaching 30C within the Arctic Circle.

Parts of Fennoscandia had almost two weeks of "strong heat stress" -- when temperatures feel hotter than 32C. In an average year, the region will normally have up to two days of strong heat stress.

In Türkiye, temperatures reached 50C for the first time in July while 85 percent of the Greek population was affected by extreme temperatures close to or above 40C.

Large parts of western and southern Europe were hit with two significant heatwaves in June, including most of Spain, Portugal, France and southern parts of Britain.

A third major heatwave struck Portugal, Spain and France in August.

Europe and the rest of the world could face another extremely hot summer as the El Nino weather phenomenon, which pushed global temperatures to record highs in 2024, is expected to return in the middle of the year.

Glaciers across Europe recorded a net mass loss in 2025, with Iceland experiencing its second-largest ever melt.

Europe's glaciers are found in mountainous areas such as the Alps, northern Scandinavia, Iceland and Greenland's periphery.

"Glaciers across Europe and globally are projected to continue to lose mass throughout the 21st century, regardless of the emission scenario," the report said.

The Greenland Ice Sheet lost round 139 billion tons of ice -- "equivalent to losing 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools every single hour", said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which operates Copernicus.

It raised the global mean sea level by 0.4 mm.

Europe's snow cover, meanwhile, was the third lowest on record.

For the third year running, renewable energy produced more of Europe's electricity than fossil fuels, accounting for 46.4 percent of the continent's power generation.

Solar power's contribution reached a record 12.5 percent.

"But that's not sufficient. We need to speed up," said Dusan Chrenek, principal advisor at the European Commission's climate office. "We need to work on transitioning away from fossil fuels."

Europe's annual sea surface temperature was the highest on record for the fourth consecutive year.

A record 86 percent of the European ocean region had at least one day with "strong" marine heatwave conditions.

Such heatwaves have an impact on biodiversity, notably on seagrass meadows in the Mediterranean which act as natural sea barriers and are sensitive to high temperatures.

"They are biodiversity hotspots housing thousands of fish per acre and are critical nursery habitats," said Claire Scannell, one of the report's authors and principal meteorologist officer at Ireland's weather service.

The area burnt by wildfires, meanwhile, reached a record 1,034,550 hectares.

Storms and floods killed at least 21 people and affected 14,500 across Europe, though flooding and extreme rainfall were less widespread than in recent years.