THANE, May 8 -- An attempt to sell a 14-year-old girl belonging to the Katkari tribe for Rs.1.2 lakh in marriage on Monday was successfully halted by activists of Shramjeevi Sanghatana, a pro-tribal organisation, in Pillanje village of Bhiwandi tehsil. On Wednesday, the 36-year-old groom and seven others were arrested. Police said the minor's parents and uncle are absconding. The victim comes from a financially distressed family. After her mother passed away 12 years ago, her father remarried. Her stepmother forced her to drop out of school and conspired with her father to marry her off. They then arranged her marriage with a 36-year-old man from Ahmednagar in exchange for Rs.1.20 lakh, as per the FIR. The incident came to light when the organisation received information about a child marriage that took place on Monday. The wedding party was about to return to the groom's village when a group of activists -- Dayanand Patil, Jagdish Raut, Jayram Raut, Madhu Raut, Nitin Raut, and Mithun Raut -- stopped the vehicle and alerted the Sanghatana's founder Vivek Pandit, who filed a complaint with the Ganeshpuri police. Assistant police inspector Sandipan Sonawane and his team reached the scene promptly and took all 8 individuals into custody. "It is a case of child trafficking under the guise of marriage," said Sonawane. "By the time we reached, the marriage had already taken place. However, we managed to apprehend eight people, including the groom. The minor was sent to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) for protection." On Wednesday, the police booked 11 persons under relevant sections of the Child Marriage Prohibition Act and the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita. "It is deeply concerning that those responsible for preventing such incidents at the village level like village development officers and police have completely failed in their duties," said Vivek Pandit....