‘Child marriage racket’ busted: Hyderabad Police arrests a Qazi and 8 Sheikhs

NewsBharati    26-Sep-2017
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Hyderabad, September 26: ‘Child marriage racket’ busted by the Hyderabadi Police that exposed a Qazi and three Sheikhs from Arab. Hyderabad police busted a marriage racket in the city and arrested eight Sheikhs and four Muslim clerics for being part of the plot. The arrested Sheikhs hail from Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar.

Hyderabad police arrested Ali Abdullah Rifai, who was absconding since a week. The case was registered against him in Chandrayangutta police station, booked for performing child marriages with elderly foreign nationals in 2015, and managed to obtain a stay order from a court against his suspension by the State Minorities Department.

 

“We have finally succeeded in tracing him and he has been detained for interrogation," said an investigating official. Last week, the Hyderabad police rescued 12 under-aged girls and busted a major racket with the arrest of 20 accused, including eight Arabs five Omanis and three Qataris. According to police, the sheikhs from Saudi Arabia had married two minor girls - Falakhnuma and Chandrayan Gutta - on a contract basis.

Marriages of minor girls from poor Muslim families to elderly Arabs is not new in Hyderabad. The well-organised racket involves middlemen in Hyderabad and those based in Gulf countries, who lure poor families with the promise to pull them out of poverty.