Woman caught for trapping Muslim men in ‘love jihad’

BIJNOR: UP police have arrested an Assamese woman, identified as Zameela Khatun, 30, alias Puja Sharma, who claimed to be from Delhi and "honey- trapped" men from the minority community in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand as they were "easy targets”.
SHO at Bijnor's Kotwali Dehat, Jaiveer Singh, said on Monday, “Khatun, who often posed as Puja Sharma, found an opportunity in ‘love jihad’ cases as it is easy to file an FIR in such circumstances. She even ran a gang comprising several men from Uttarakhand and UP to find potential targets and extort money from them. The woman had 'married' at least six persons in Assam, Uttarakhand and UP, as per our probe so far.”
Singh pointed out that the FIR she had filed in Bijnor against a resident of Akbarabad, Mohd Ehtasham, on July 6, led to her capture. During investigations, it came to light that she actually hailed from Darrang district in Assam. Police later found her original Aadhaar and voter ID, and also contacted her parents in Assam. "In the complaint against Ehtasham, the woman had claimed that her 'husband' abandoned her after marriage in May and she was tortured by her in-laws. The family was booked for domestic violence and dowry in that case, only to later find that the charges were fake. Further probe revealed she had filed similar FIRs against two other men -- Zaheer and Naushad -- at Patel Nagar police station in Dehradun and her associates in Uttarakhand and UP helped her in the extortion bid," the SHO added.
On Sunday, the woman along with her two Bijnor-based associates -- Mohd Zaheer and Asif -- was held and booked under relevant sections of the IPC.
Uttarakhand DGP, Ashok Kumar, said, “We are coordinating with UP Police in the probe and trying to nab the absconding accused.”
(With inputs from Kalyan Das in Dehradun)