Police have apprehended five persons, including a woman from Uttar Pradesh, while busting an inter-state racket involved in orchestrating fake marriages to extort money from unsuspecting grooms. As per a PTI report, five cases with a similar approach have come to light—three from Akhnoor and two from Nagrota.
The arrests included both locals and outsiders, a “major breakthrough,” the Akhnoor police station told PTI after receiving a complaint about a fraudulent marriage.
Deepak Kumar, a resident of Shana Hapri, had approached the complainant, Rashpal Chand from nearby Dori Dager, with a marriage proposal from outside the Union Territory and asked for ₹3 lakh.
After the marriage was solemnised, the bride, along with her accomplices, fled within two days, he added. A probe revealed that the gang was running a fraudulent nexus under the guise of a marriage bureau.
The racket had taken care of every nuance related to marriage to ensure that weddings could be solemnised quickly. They arranged a bride, priest, and other formalities; the report detailed that shortly after the marriage, the bride would desert the groom.
Under societal pressure, the victims often refrained from reporting such incidents. Four similar cases surfaced during the probe -three in Akhnoor and two in Nagrota. The nexus of miscreants generally targeted vulnerable individuals, especially those unable to find a suitable match or considered overage for marriage.
