Mumbai: Five years after a man had raped and married a minor girl, only to flee the country later, was arrested from Lucknow international airport last week. The accused, Khubeb Ahmed (36), had raped the minor on several occasions between 2012 and 2013. However, he married the minor after she became pregnant, but immediately fled the country, severing ties with her. Ahmed was booked under relevant sections of the IPC and was produced in Mumbai metropolitan court on Wednesday.
According to police, in 2012, Ahmed had established romantic relations with the teenager. He, along with an accomplice, raped her several times after spiking her drink. In a bid to silence the girl, Ahmed had threatened to post her photographs on social media. However, after the minor got pregnant she told her family about Ahmed and his accomplice. When the family approached the police, the accomplice is said to have allegedly ‘settled’ the case by forcing the girl to marry Ahmed.
Soon after the wedding in 2013, Ahmed abandoned the minor and fled the country, said police. The girl’s family registered a case against Ahmed in 2014, when a social worker saw the minor with a child and enquired about it. The minor told her story to the social worker who approached the police and were on the lookout for Ahmed. He was suspected of hiding in Dubai and had issued a lookout circular to arrest him.
Meanwhile, a special investigation team (SIT) was constituted to investigate the allegations levelled against three policemen – police inspector (PI) Jaywant Shinde, PI Vivek Shende and constable Janita Bhosale, of conspiring with Ahmed and forcing the minor to marry him instead of registering an FIR. Recently, a city court had passed an order making three policemen as co-accused in the case. Amboli police had already arrested Ahmed’s accomplice in 2015, while a search was underway for Ahmed. Five years after the case was registered, Ahmed was arrested from Lucknow international airport on Saturday, as soon as he landed in India from Saudi Arabia. He was brought to Mumbai on Tuesday evening.
