Dubai: A 70-year-old Indian widower was duped in a marriage scam, and suffered a minor heart attack after the woman he was about to marry, disappeared with valuables worth Rs28 lakh (Dh137,224.22), in Mumbai. He has been looking for her for the last 10 months, but she remains incommunicado. This month, he finally withdrew the marriage petition they had filed last year.
Reportedly, police in Mumbai’s Borivali registered a case in July, after the victim suffered a heart attack when he went to Jaipur looking for the woman who had apparently disappeared last year, but was unable to find her.
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What happened
According to Indian media reports the victim got duped by the accused in August 2019. His first wife had passed away in February 2018, and the man decided to remarry on a friend's advice. The friend told the victim about a divorced woman, who had a daughter aged 21 years. Subsequently, the duo interacted. The accused told the septuagenarian that she, along with her parents, brother and daughter, would come to Mumbai to finalise the wedding.
Reportedly, when the accused and her family reached Mumbai, they stayed at the complainant’s house. Unaware of the woman’s intentions, the 70-year-old man gave her a set of house keys. The woman also proposed they should register their marriage in Jaipur.
On August 8, 2019, the septuagenarian, woman and her family went to Jaipur. They submitted affidavits and other documents but were given a marriage date after 30 days. The septuagenarian decided to return to Mumbai as he did not wish to stay there for a month.
After he returned home, he found that his property documents were missing. Later, when he checked the closet in the room where the woman’s family had stayed, he discovered that gold ornaments, and other valuables were missing. He made attempts to contact the mother-daughter duo, but all was in vain.
The senior citizen then went to Jaipur to locate the woman and her family, he could not find them, and suffered a heart attack.
He then withdrew the marriage petition, and in his statement to the police, he said: “I was very upset about what had happened to me. I was stressed, suffered a minor heart attack. My friend rushed me to a hospital there. After a few days I was discharged and came to Mumbai.”
According to a report published by a local Indian newspaper, the Midday, the police has filed a case against the woman and her family under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.
