LARKANA, Jan 3 Police arrested two bridegrooms, a maulvi and a woman in Ali ji Wandh village near Mirokhan on Sunday on charges of their involvement in marriages of underage girls and for aiding and abetting the crime.

According to reports reaching here, Manzoor Lashari, 60, married off his son's seven-year-old daughter Bano to Hameed Lashari, 30, and he himself married 13-year-old Sanin Lashari, sister of Hameed.

Maulvi Suhbat Lashari solemnised the nikkahs on the 10th of Moharram.

The report about the marriages surfaced when Sanin visited her brothers Ghani, Manthar and Malhar in Sobhodero of Khairpur district.Annoyed that their father had forcibly married off their sister to an old man and himself married a teenager, the brothers sought help of journalists in getting the illegal marriages nullified.

When Qambar-Shahdadkot District Police Officer Junaid Shaikh heard of the marriages, he ordered registration of a case against the maulvi, Mr Manzoor and Hameed Lashari and Lateefan, mother of Hameed.

The DPO said the accused had been arrested.