One woman says she is his wife. A second woman says she is his wife. And now a third woman, a 37-year-old divorcee from Powai, has filed a police complaint alleging she was tricked into a marriage that was never legal in the first place.
The case, registered at Parksite police station in Vikhroli, has grown beyond a single broken promise. It now involves four accused: the 33-year-old man, his father, his brother, and his sister-in-law.
They face charges of cheating, criminal intimidation, and dowry harassment under the Indian Penal Code. The complainant met the man on a matrimonial site in 2023. She was honest about her past.
She told him she was divorced. He told her he was a bachelor, a businessman, never married.
She believed him. They married in a Buddhist ceremony in Bandra later that year. Her parents gave her gold jewellery — 95.44 grams of it.
That is about eight to ten bangles, maybe a necklace and earrings. Standard wedding gifts for a daughter starting a new home. Within a week of moving into the matrimonial home in Kamothe, Navi Mumbai, the gifts were not enough.
The complaint states the woman was taunted for not bringing sufficient dowry. The taunts, she alleged, turned into physical assault by her husband.
The father-in-law, the brother-in-law, and the sister-in-law joined in the harassment. Then came the money. The family is accused of cheating her family out of Rs 24 lakh.
That sum, if proven, would represent a systematic extraction of funds under the guise of marriage. But the deepest cut came later.
Another woman has come forward. She claims she is the man’s first wife. She says they have a child together.
If her claim holds, the marriage to the Powai woman was a fraud from the start. A legal nullity. A piece of theatre staged for financial gain.
The stakes for the complainant are concrete. She is a homemaker.
She divorced her first husband seeking a fresh start. Instead, she entered a second marriage that may not exist in law. She handed over her wedding gold.
Her family handed over Rs 24 lakh. She endured beatings.
And now she must prove it all in court. For the man and his family, the stakes are equally real. The charges carry prison time.
A conviction for cheating and dowry harassment can mean years behind bars. The first wife’s claim, if verified, would add bigamy to the list. The police have booked all four accused.
They have not made arrests yet. The investigation will hinge on documents — marriage registration papers, bank transfers showing the Rs 24 lakh, gold receipts for the 95.44 grams.
And the first wife’s testimony, if she gives it formally. Matrimonial sites operate on trust. Users submit profiles.
They tick boxes: never married, divorced, widowed. They upload photos.
They write bios. No one checks. No one verifies.
A man can call himself a bachelor and the site takes his word for it. The 37-year-old woman took that word. She paid for it with her jewellery, her family’s savings, and her safety.
The man’s first wife, if she exists, paid with years of silence. The system failed both of them.
Now a court will decide what that failure costs.
