Unsure of girl's age, cops nab husband, put her in remand home

The Tilak Nagar police station is investigating the elopement of a CRPF inspector's daughter from Uttar Pradesh to the city, and her subsequent marriage to her neighbour on September 30. While the girl's husband claims she is 20 years old, her parents claim she is 16. The girl, meanwhile, has been kept at a children's remand home for a month.

Representation pic

16 going on 20?
After fleeing with Rashiya Shaikh (name changed) from UP, Salim Rafiq Khan (21) went to the Tilak Nagar police station to report the marriage and confirm that she is a major. He also sought police protection, saying that he felt threatened by the girl's family. Cops then contacted the girl's father. The latter, however, claimed that his daughter is a minor. The girl, in turn, produced a voter's ID card, which showed her age as 20 years. Her father, however, still insisted that she is a minor and said he would produce her birth certificate to prove that she was born in 1996.

Yesterday, when the matter came up for hearing before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), the Tilak Nagar police failed to produce the original birth certificate of the girl to establish the claim made by the girl's parents.

Meanwhile, Salim is in the custody of Dongri police and will be handed over to a team of cops from UP, where a case has been lodged under sections 363 and 366 of the IPC against him on charges of abduction.

Rashiya's father Sameer Shaikh is an inspector with the 92nd battalion of CRPF. The family stays in Kasganj, Ganeshpur district in UP.

The flight
According to the victim's relatives, Rashiya left the house on the morning of September 28 on the pretext of taking her class XI admissions. However, when she did not return home till afternoon, her worried family members launched a search. A relative, Rizwan Ali, claimed that cash of over Rs 1.1 lakh and around 16 tolas worth of gold ornaments had gone missing from the house. The family learnt that Salim, their neighbour, was also missing, and feared that the two might have eloped. They registered a case with the local police station in Kasganj.

The family even alerted their relatives in Mumbai, as they had information that Salim was selling fruits in Chembur. The family's fears were confirmed when their relatives discovered that Rashiya and Salim were living together at his relative's house in Chembur.

They requested Salim to send the girl back to her parents and he allegedly agreed to oblige within a day or two, but instead took Rashiya to a marriage bureau in Bandra and they completed the formalities on September 30.

Meanwhile, Rashiya's parents, along with a team of UP police, arrived in the city and approached the Tilak Nagar police station. But since they did not have the FIR lodged against Salim, UP police could not arrest him immediately. Rashiya, meanwhile, was sent to a remand home for children.

On Monday, Salim allegedly threatened her parents with dire consequences and created a ruckus outside the home. The girl's parents then contacted the police control room, after which Dongri police nabbed Salim.

He was taken into custody and produced before a court yesterday, which remanded him in police custody till November 5.

"We are waiting to seek custody of our daughter and then return to UP. We are hopeful that the court would decide in our favour," said Rashqiya's relative.

Copspeak
Senior Police Inspector RM Gavit of Tilak Nagar police station said, "The girl produced a voting card, where her age was mentioned as 20 years and we suspected that the same was bogus, and since the parents had already registered a case of kidnapping with the local police in UP, we sent her to the children's home."u00a0