‘Fake marriage’ racket busted, 6 held

PATTAN: Police Wednesday unearthed a ‘fake marriage’ racket in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, arresting six people including four women. However, the kingpin of the racket who had also been arrested in 2009 is still absconding.

According to the SSP Baramulla, Imtiyaz Hussain, acting on a specific information about the complaints of involvement of a group of people in immoral business a special police team carried out a raid in Trikolbal Pattan area and arrested six persons including four women.

All the accused hail from Trikobal Pattan area while a female resides in Handwara town. He identified the accused as Latif Pandit and his wife Amina Begum, Latif Wagay and his wife Atiqa Begum, Shamima Begum and Atiqa Bano. The kingpin Sitara Begum is still roaming free.

 “The accused were running a planned ‘marriage racket’. The kingpin used to approach the prospective groom’s family as a middle-woman. The husband used to introduce his wife as the prospective bride and Sitara Begum as the bride’s mother. Another male accused used to pose as bride’s brother and so on.

After conducting the marriage, the impostor wife and her makeshift family used to make good with the gold ornaments and cash that they received as part of the ‘Nikah’ ceremony.

The gang used to rent a house,” he said. The rented house used to be vacated by the gang once they had given effect to their nefarious designs. The gang has duped unsuspecting grooms, thereby denigrating the scared institution of marriage,” SSP Baramulla said adding that all the arrested persons have been lodged in Sub-jail Baramulla.

 He added that fake ‘Nikahnamas’ have been recovered at the instance of the gang members. “A formal case vide FIR number 19/2016 under section 34, 420, 494, 495 RPC has been registered against the gang members,” he said.

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