Mass marriage for physically challenged : Ahemedabad

A hard-pressed, physically-challenged Muslim social worker has done what NGOs receiving millions of rupees as government grant have not been able to achieve so far in Gujarat. 

Babu Sabuwala, a small-time scrap dealer walking with crutches, on Sunday successfully organised the state’s first all-religion mass marriage ceremony for 20 cash-strapped couples where both the bride and the groom were differently abled and hailed from different religions. 

The Vikalang Sahayak Kendra, headed by Sabuwala, brought smiles on the faces of paraplegic, visually-impaired and mute Muslim as well as Hindu men and women aged between 24 and 42 years by solemnising their marriage with their respective rituals.  


                   Couples at the mass marriage ceremony in Ahmedabad

Thanks to golden-hearted philanthropists like Abdul Iraki and Magan Patel, all the couples, dressed in their Sunday best, were gifted a small sofa set, a double bed, a steel cupboard, a kitchen set, a sewing machine, grains for one month and, of course, religious books. Sabuwala, who has been doing a yeoman’s service for many years, told Khaleej Times that finding out such handicapped couples and making them agree to tie the knot with each other had been tough. The Narendra Modi government has a scheme for providing financial aid for marriages of underprivileged classes but boasts no such facility for its handicapped citizens who are an unhappy lot in Gujarat.


Source : Khaleej Times , 1st May 2013