A Hindu woman identified as 35-year-old Pratibha Soni has filed a case with the Uttar Pradesh police 10 days ago, accusing her husband, who is a Muslim, of forcing her to convert to Islam despite marrying her in an Arya Samaj temple, reports Swarajya. The woman has also accused her husband of cheating on her with another woman and sexually exploiting her for years on the pretext of marriage.
Based on the complaint filed by Pratibha Soni, who is seven months pregnant now, the Uttar Pradesh police arrested her husband Faheem on several charges including harassment and criminal intimidation.
Sultanpur Police had taken to its official Tweeter handle on November 29 to apprise about the arrest.
थाना को0नगर पुलिस द्वारा मु0अ0सं0 1082/2021 धारा 498ए/313/494/506 भा0द0वि0 से सम्बन्धित अभियुक्त फहीम कुरेशी पुत्र सुल्तान कुरेशी नि0 लाला की पुरवा थाना को0नगर जनपद सुलतानपुर को गिरफ्तार कर मा0 न्यायालय भेजा गया। pic.twitter.com/O0tgPxe5Ja
— Sultanpur Police (@PROCell19) November 28, 2021
Pratibha’s said in the first information report (FIR) that she was in a relationship with Faheem for the last 10 years. In these years, he had sexually exploited her multiple times on the pretext of marriage. Pratibha Soni revealed that in these years, she became pregnant multiple times but Faheem would have her pregnancy terminated each time, claiming that he couldn’t marry her before marrying off his sisters.
As per the report by Swarajya, the victim further said in her statement that in 2018, the two got married in an Arya Samaj temple. Faheem adopted Hinduism to marry her. The relationship between the duo gradually started changing after the wedding and after three months of her pregnancy, Faheem started pressuring her to convert to Islam and perform nikah with him.
She added that after her marriage at the Arya Samaj Mandir and subsequent paperwork, Pratibha’s brother-in-law who works at a newspaper advertisement agency offered to get Faheem’s name change declaration published in a newspaper for free. “But Faheem said no. He said he had converted for marriage’s sake and did not want to change his name in any of his documents,” recalled Pratibha in her statement.
Pratibha informed that Faheem had an additional Aadhaar card made in the name of Rajesh. “I have seen it,” confirmed the victim.
Narrating her story to Swarajya, Pratibha Soni, a native of Uttar Pradesh said that she was a native of Sultanpur and had previously gotten married to a man from her caste in an arranged marriage in 2002. Her husband’s family lived in Jaunpur. She had three sons from her first marriage. After her first husband died in an accident five years after the marriage, she shifted to her parent’s house in Sultanpur and resumed her studies.
She pursued a bachelor then a master’s in commerce. She also earned a vocational diploma in computers. After her studies, she got a job at a private college in Jaunpur and shifted there.
Pratibha met Rajesh while attending college in Sultanpur. They became good friends. As Pratibha became more self-sufficient following her employment, the two became closer and started dating. Rajesh began to pay her visits in Jaunpur.
Pratibha claimed that she met Rajesh through a common woman acquaintance who was a Muslim.
“Probably because he had worked and lived in Mumbai, he was quite open-minded. He was okay with being in a relationship with a single woman with children,” she said, adding that later she learnt that Rajesh was actually Faheem Qureshi. She claims she learned it from one of Faheem’s friends.
“I would often ask him to formally marry me as he was coming to stay with me frequently. Every time, he said he needed time as he had sisters to marry,” says Pratibha. “I approached one of his friends to try convince Rajesh for the marriage. The friend revealed that he is not Rajesh but Faheem Qureshi,” Pratibha Soni was quoted by Swarajya as saying.
Pratibha recalled how after a few weeks of her breaking her ties with him after a miscarriage in 2017, Faheem approached her with a marriage proposal. “He said he wanted to live with me and spent the rest of his life with me. I accepted his offer,” she said.
Despite having her own house, Pratibha now shifted to Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh and started staying in a rented apartment just so that they could stay close to each other. Faheem by now introduced her to his family.
When Pratibha insisted on marriage, Faheem suggested that Yogi sarkar is going after Muslim men marrying Hindu women, so it was best for both of us to marry in a temple as Hindus, said the Hindu woman.
Pratibha said her parents did not approve of her decision to marry Farheen, but she still went ahead.
After the marriage, when her brother-in-law offered to get Faheem’s name changed officially on all his legal documents, the latter refused, saying he had converted just for the sake of the marriage and did not want to change his name in any of his documents.
Pratibha added here: “Faheem anyway has an additional Aadhaar card made in the name of Rajesh. I have seen it.”
Continuing to narrate her woeful plight, Pratibha Soni said that even after the marriage Faheem did not take her to his house. She continued to live in the rented accommodation in Sultanpur, which Faheem visited frequently.
Pratibha told Swarajya that their relationship started to strain after she became pregnant in 2019 and Faheem compelled her to abort the child once again. Their relationship took a turn for the worst when she found out she was pregnant again earlier this year.
Faheem puts pressure on Pratibha Soni to convert to Islam and perform nikah with him
“I was diagnosed with a disease and was told to go for a blood test. The doctor revealed that I was pregnant. The doctor said that given my illness, it was advisable that I don’t abort the pregnancy. When I told Faheem about it, he reluctantly agreed to keep the baby,” she said, adding that Faheem’s sisters were still unmarried.
She said that within the first trimester of her pregnancy only she saw a significant shift in Faheem’s behaviour towards her. He began putting pressure on her to convert to Islam and perform nikah with him.
The duo started having arguments over this. Faheem reportedly told her that his family had refused to accept his conversion to the Hindu faith or his marriage in the temple. They demanded a nikah.
‘All he did was use me for sexual pleasure and money’, the Uttar Pradesh Hindu victim tells Swarajya
“Ma’am, I would have agreed to the nikah as well had it not been for the fact that I was increasingly feeling like I was being cheated. It slowly dawned on me that all this man had done to me was use me for sexual pleasure and money,” Pratibha told Swarajya.
Speaking about his income, she said that Faheem did not have a regular income or occupation. For a long time he avoided speaking to her on this topic, but one day during a visit to the dargah, two years before their marriage, Pratibha confronted him again and demanded to know what he did for a living. He then told her that he sold drugs.
Pratibha discouraged him to do such illegal things and asked him to open his own meat shop for which she even spared Rs 50,000.
Meanwhile, after two more months of her pregnancy had passed, Faheem angrily told Pratibha that the child she was carrying was not his.
“He asked me what proof I had that the child was his. I was furious. I told him I could get him jailed for rape and a DNA test would easily prove it. He said he did not fear rape charges,” she revealed.
After this spat when Faheem stopped visiting her and the phone calls between them reduced to zero, Pratibha decided to confront him at his parents’ house. Somehow managing her way through, despite being in the last trimester of her pregnancy, when Pratibha Soni reached Faheem’s locality in Sultanpur she learnt that Faheem had shifted to a new location, behind Khajuri Masjid in Lala ka Purwa area, with his family. She was also told by her neighbours that he had married a girl from the colony only a few weeks ago. It was a low-key event, they informed her.
When Pratibha reached Faheem’s house, seeing her newly wedded wife, she began crying profusely and called up the police. She collapsed on the floor and regained consciousness only in the police van, she recalled.
This incident occurred on October 29. The same day, Pratibha lodged a complaint with the Uttar Pradesh police against her husband and his family members. However, no FIR was registered as the two parties agreed to settle the case mutually.
Though Pratibha remained tight-lipped about the terms of the agreement, she said that Faheem accepted to live with her after that day. The next day, he also moved in with her. However, a few weeks later he disappeared again.
Pratibha visited the police station once more after his disappearance and an FIR was filed subsequently.
The FIR (number 1082/2021) filed at City Kotwali police station in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh on November 27, named Faheem as a suspect under IPC sections 498A (harassment of woman subjecting her to cruelty), 313 (causing marriage without women’s consent), 494 (marrying after having a husband or wife) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
Swarajya also spoke to the Investigating Officer Praveen Mishra who told the media outlet that that investigation is on and it was too early to make any official statement. Asked why the police did not file an FIR on October 29 itself, he said that both parties agreed to a compromise and thus, there was no case.
Pratibha also showed Swarajya her marriage certificate, which was issued by an “Arya Samaj mandir” on March 20, 2018. The temple’s address is Sector H of Harsh Vihar in the Aliganj area of Lucknow district, according to the certificate.
The marriage certificate mentioned Faheem Qureshi’s name after ‘conversion’ as Raj Arya.
On 7 December when Swarajya once again contacted Pratibha Soni she said that with two months left for her child to be born, she has found that she was being cheated for the past 10 years.
“There are two women involved. The child in my womb needs justice. Faheem’s second wife needs justice too. I can tell you for sure that I will make his family sell everything they possess to provide for the baby,” she said determinedly, adding that she has urged the police to add provisions of the anti-forced conversion act in her case. “They asked me to bring the documents,” she said.
