The groom's terminally ill mother, fed up with her drunkard husband, wanted someone mature to take care of her 13-year-old son. Photo: Ashish Pandey

In a bizarre and utterly shocking incident, a 13-year-old boy was married to a 23-year-old lady, amid all the relatives, villagers and band bajaa baraat.

The two tied the knot in April in Upparahal village of Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool district. However, the incident came in light just this week.

Fed up with her drunkard husband, the groom's terminally ill mother wanted someone mature to take care of her 13-year-old son.

Both bride and groom's parents met at neighbouring city of Bengaluru where they were earning livelihood. The groom's mother fixed the marriage of her minor son.

Also read: Child marriage will put an end to 'love jihad', says BJP MLA Gopal Parmar

The marriage was performed at their village in Kurnool on April 27. The ceremony was attended by relatives and villagers who blessed the newly-wed couple.

Later, when the pictures of marriage went viral on social media, district administration officials rushed to the village where they found the family but the newly-wedded were missing.

The district child care officer and local Tahsildar in their initial investigation found that the groom's mother and father are agricultural labourers, while bride's parents are also labourers from neighbouring Bellari districts of Karnataka.

The 13-year-old groom is the eldest in the family and has a younger brother and two sisters.

Meanwhile, the administration has warned the family with an FIR and asked the couple to surrender as marriage is not 'legal'.

However, the incident has exposed the ill menace of child marriage and fallout of administration to curb it, particularly in rural Andhra Pradesh.

Also watch | Child marriages in India: Explained in numbers