Two men were arrested here on Wednesday in a case in which one of them had allegedly married a woman from another community by concealing his identity and put pressure on her to convert, police said.
Arif Khan, the father of three children, married a Hindu woman allegedly by posing as Aarav. He, along with his family, then pressured the woman to convert to Islam and event started calling her Ziya Khan, police said.
When the woman got pregnant, the accused initially pressured her to abort the child but when she gave birth to a boy, he again forced her for conversion, they added.
The woman managed to flee with her child to her native place in Bihar, where she kept her son with her parents and returned to Gurugram. Subsequently, the accused and his family members forcibly entered her rented accommodation here and again put pressure on her to convert, police said.
On a complaint from the woman, a case was registered under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Haryana Prevention of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2022, popularly known as the Love Jihad Act, against the main accused and six others at the Sector 14 police station on Wednesday.
Subsequently, prime accused Arif Khan alias Aarav (35) and his associate, Tarif Khan (34), residents of Dhunela village, were arrested.
According to the FIR, the 24-year-old woman from Bihar was working at a car showroom in Gurugram in 2022 when she got in touch with Arif Khan through Tarif Khan, who also worked in the same company.
The prime accused introduced himself to the woman as Aarav and said he was unmarried. He also told the woman that he does not have a father, his mother suffers from a mental illness and his brothers do not care about the family, police said.
The woman got married to the accused at a temple here in accordance with Hindu customs, they added.
According to the complaint, when the woman became pregnant in 2023, the accused started pressuring her to abort the child and even threatened to make her private videos viral, but as the pregnancy was six months old, the child could not be aborted.
The accused got the woman admitted to a private hospital in Gurugram and left. The woman gave birth to a boy on August 11, 2023, police said.
"A few months later, Tarif Khan told me that Aarav's real name is Arif Khan, he is married and has three children. He took me to his home in Dhunela village, near Sohna, where the accused, her mother, wife and brothers named me Ziya Khan and started pressuring me to convert.
"I was beaten up and threatened with death.... Somehow, I managed to escape to Bihar, but the accused also reached there. I returned to Gurugram after leaving my child with my parents in Bihar. Late in the evening of January 26, the accused forcibly entered my rented accommodation, beat me up and pressured me to convert. After this, with the help of two social workers, I approached the police," the woman said in her complaint.
The FIR was lodged against Arif Khan alias Aarav, his mother Jaituni, wife Arshida, brothers Irfan, Noman, Momen and associate Tarif Khan, all residents of Dhunela, police said.
"During interrogation, it was revealed that Tarif Khan used to work as a driver for Arif Khan earlier and in 2022, Arif Khan was in the transport business. Both of them, in a planned manner, contacted the victim through an insurance policy and trapped her in a love affair. Subsequently, Arif Khan married her at a temple," a spokesperson of the Gurugram Police said.
He added that the accused are being interrogated and further investigation is on.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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