Somali man held for 'contract marriage' bid

Police today foiled a Somali national's bid to enter into a "contract marriage" with a 23-year-old woman here and arrested him along with two women facilitators and a middleman, a senior official said.
Based on a tip-off by a Qazi, Falaknuma police booked a case after successfully foiling the contract marriage (short-term marriage) wherein the bride's mother was allegedly offered Rs 80,000 by the Somali national, said DCP (south zone) V Satyanarayana.
The Somali, identified as Syed Ibrahim, was nabbed along with the middleman Wahab and introducers Shabhana Begum and Shahin Sulthana, the DCP said.
Wahab, Shabhana and Shahin with an intention to earn easy money hatched a plan to perform contract marriages involving poor people and according to their plan the victim was introduced to Ibrahim for marriage, police said.

The trio did not tell the victim about the contract marriage which would last a couple of weeks even as her mother was offered the money by Ibrahim, police said.
Hyderabad Police had earlier busted several contract marriage rackets in Old city involving Qazis performing marriages with fabricated documents and instances like pimps fixing alliances and foreigners purchasing brides for sexual exploitation.
The modus operandi of the agents is to trap minor girls from poor families, by luring them with money and then selling them off to foreigners with the help of Qazis who "perform" the marriage using fabricated documents.

At the time of marriage itself the bride is made to sign blank bond papers of 'talaq', according to police.