Maharashtra: Man booked on charges of rape and triple talaq on plaint of his wife who changed her religion

The accused revealed his true identity as Siraj Qureshi a year after the marriage and asked the woman to convert to Islam if she wanted to live with him, the woman alleged.

An FIR has been registered against a man from Maharashtra's Thane district on charges of rape and criminal intimidation after a 27-year-old woman alleged that he married her by hiding his true identity, forced her to convert to Islam, and then gave her triple talaq, police said on Wednesday.

Police are yet to arrest the accused, identified as Raju alias Siraj Qureshi, a resident of Bhiwandi, a police official said.

As per the First Information Report (FIR), the victim woman got separated from her husband in 2018 and was taking care of herself and her seven-year-old daughter.

In 2019, the woman became friends with the accused through social media who identified himself as Raju. He told the woman that he owned a hotel in Bhiwandi and proposed to marry her. He allegedly raped the woman at a lodge in 2020. On January 26 that year, he married the woman as per Hindu customs, the official said quoting the FIR.

The accused revealed his true identity as Siraj Qureshi a year after the marriage and asked the woman to convert to Islam if she wanted to live with him. The woman accepted his demand and later they married again as per Islamic customs last May, it said.

"In May this year, Qureshi told the woman that he was already married with four children and he would lose his share in ancestral property if they continued their relation, and gave her triple talaq," the official said.

The woman approached the police following which a case was registered against Qureshi under sections 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 376 (Punishment for rape), 506 (criminal intimidation), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code and the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, which criminalises triple talaq, the FIR stated.