Fake Hyderabad qazi solemnised 200 weddings

HYDERABAD: With each passing day, the recently busted international child bride racket seems to be getting murkier with Hyderabad police making a startling discovery on Friday that the 200 marriages performed by the now arrested 'fake' qazi from Hyderabad, Ali Abdullah Rafai, were illegal as he allegedly issued fake Siyahnamas (marriage forms).
Investigators also suspect that the Mumbai chief qazi, Qazi Farid Ahmed Khan, who is an associate of Rafai and is also being grilled, too followed the same modus operandi.
In the first two days that the three arrested qazis, including Rafai and Farid, spent in police custody , the investigators found that though the Waqf Board had not issued a single Siyahnama to Rafai since 2014, he solemnized 200 marriages, including those of minor girls and other women to Arab nationals, in the last two years and issued fake Assistant commissioner of police (Falaknuma Division) Mohammed Tajuddin Ahmed told TOI, "When we contacted the Waqf Board authorities to ascertain the authenticity of the Siyahnamas issued by Rafai for the marriages performed by him, the Wakf officials said they had not supplied a single Siyahnama to him since 2014, "Rafai's appointment as a qazi too was suspended for some reason but he challenged the suspension in the High Court, where the matter is still pending. He has not been given permission to perform the duties of a qazi till date, which is why he was not supplied Siyahnamas by the Waqf Board," Tajuddin explained.
Hyderabad police took the help of the Waqf Board's Nasirul Qazath (supervisor of qazis) and two Waqf Board employees who are experts in Arabic, since Rafai's office which was sealed after his arrest, has to be searched and the documents, most of which are in Arabic, need to be verified.
The cops suspect that Rafai gained confidence of several people in Waqf Board when his father was a qazi and after he passed away in 2013, Rafai got himself appointed as qazi.He remained qazi only for a day as the GO announcing his appointment was cancelled the very next day.
"We suspect that the illegal Siyahnamas issued by Rafai to about 200 couples may have been those left over from his father's tenure as qazi. As there is no system of returning the Siyahnamas after the death of a qazi, there is a chance of them being misused if they fall into the wrong hands," said a police source. As of now, there are 80 qazis across Telangana, whose appointment is hereditary and made through the government gazette. But there are several persons in the city and other districts who perform marriages claiming to be qazis despite not being termed as fake qazis. A team of Hyderabad police also went to Mumbai to find out more about the illegal activities of Qazi Farid Ahmed Khan.