Dubai: A man has been jailed for three months for harassing a 19-year-old girl’s father by calling him 28 times and threatening to kill him if he didn’t allow him to marry her.

The 28-year-old Indian worker, K.A., was said to have spotted the Indian girl with her family at a church in Dubai and, after falling in love with her, he repeatedly called up her father who turned down his marriage proposal several times in July.

The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted K.A. of abusing the telecommunication system and harassing the father on his private phone and threatening to kill the latter and his family if he did not allow him to marry the girl.

According to the charge sheet, prosecutors accused the defendant of harassing the father more than two dozen times on his phone and threatening him and his family.

The defendant claimed he was in love with the girl and wanted to marry her but he did not have any criminal intentions.

The father said to prosecutors that the accused called him one day at 7am and introduced himself as someone he had met in church in Al Quoz.

“I did not ask him how he obtained my personal phone number and he finished the call without telling me why he called. The defendant phoned me another time in the evening and told me that he saw my girl in church and that he wanted to marry her because he had fallen in love with her. He surprised me but I told him to forget about getting married to my daughter and ended the call. Thereafter, he called me three times but I never answered him. He kept on calling me for six continuous days … he called me around 28 times although I asked him to stop harassing me. He also came to our residence and waited for me near my car at 6am … when the building’s security guard asked him why he had been waiting, he said I owed him money.

“When he spotted me, he asked me for money, but I refused and asked the guard to kick him out. Later in the day, he called me and said I was like his uncle and should help him and give him money … but I hung up. In the evening I saw him standing beside my car when I walked out of church. He asked to marry my daughter again … he also threatened to kill me and my family if I did not allow him to marry her. I pushed him away and drove off. The next morning, the building’s security guard informed me that K.A. had been waiting for me … I immediately called the police who came and arrested him,” the father said.

Sunday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.