Bhubaneswar:  A teenaged girl from Kalahandi district was allegedly sold for Rs 60,000 to a middle-aged man of Madhya Pradesh after she was lured from her village on the pretext of marrying a younger man, police said.

The matter came to light when the girl called Dial 100 after escaping from the clutches of the elderly person.

On being informed, the cops took her to Bamitha police station in Chhatarpur area, where she narrated the entire incident.

The victim, in broken Hindi, alleged that two persons Kalicharan Patel and Sarman had come to her village in Odisha and Sarman, a 21-year-old man from Bamitha village was presented as the “groom”.

When she reached Bamitha in MP, she was married to 38-year-old Jagdish Patel in a local court, she said.

Upon being questioned, Jagdish told that he spent Rs 60,000 for the marriage. “I gave the amount to Kalicharan and Sarman,” he said as per the local police.

Interestingly, Sarman said he also wanted to marry the girl.

Meanwhile, Bamitha police station in-charge Tilak Singh said investigations are underway and an FIR will also be registered. “The allegations levelled by the girl are being ascertained,” Singh added.

Police sources said that Kalicharan Patel is quite known in the region for “arranging girls from Odisha”

“Girls and women from Odisha are regularly brought and sold to men in Bundelkhand region spread across the two states of MP and Uttar Pradesh, who find it extremely difficult to get local girls for marriage”, said Sanjay Singh, a Bundelkhand-based activist, local media reported.