Bahraini held for marrying minor girl from Hyderabad

Hyderabad: The city police late on Saturday night reportedly picked up a foreign national on charge of marrying a minor girl from the city.

According to the police, the man, reportedly a Bahrain national, had come to the city last week and married the minor from Talabkatta in the Old City. On information from reliable sources, a police team headed by an inspector monitored their movements and reportedly picked up the Bahrain national and one more person for questioning.

The police said that they had found a marriage certificate in possession of the man along with passport and few thousand Indian currency notes. The police is trying to trace the qazi who solemnised the marriage.

Elsewhere, the probe into the case of Gulf nationals marrying minors from the city took a new turn with investigation revealing that one Arif who was earlier caught by the police for arranging the marriage of a Qatar national with minor girls from the city had bought a house for Rs 22 lakh.

“His earnings are meagre. Arif tried to convince us saying that he bought the house after working for two months with the Qatar Army. The house cost him '22 lakh and there is something suspicious,” said a senior police official.

Police suspects that the house was purchased by a Qatar national who is now staying in a plush hotel in Banjara Hills. “We suspect that the Qatar national who was earlier caught in a case registered at Kalapather police station had given money to the broker. Whenever, he was in the city, the Qatar national stayed here. He came frequently,” said the police.

The police is now checking the details of all the houses which were sealed during the recent raids following the crackdown on contract marriages, according to a source.

“We knew that the foreign nationals stayed at private guest houses. Now there's a new revelation and a thorough probe is being conducted,” said the official. The police had detained two brokers and identified three women who were allegedly involved in human trafficking.

The examination of records seized from the office of the chief qazi of Mumbai, Farid Ahmed Khan, revealed that he had issued about 16,800 certificates in 27 years. Of these about, 1,800 marriages certificates pertained to Hyderabad alone, a police source told this newspaper.