In a truly astonishing turn of events, a 55-year-old Indian grandfather of three stands accused of making off with his teenage son’s 22-year-old fiancée, alongside the family’s accumulated savings and gold jewellery. It seems the heart, as they say, ‘wants what it wants’, and in this particular case, it was a rather unconventional desire.
Shakeel, a 55-year-old father of six hailing from Rampur, a village in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, recently sent shockwaves through his family. He reportedly ran away with Ayesha (a pseudonym), a 22-year-old woman from a neighbouring village, who was originally betrothed to his own son. According to Shabbana, Shakeel’s wife, he had been adamant about arranging the marriage of their son, Aman (also a pseudonym), to Ayesha. This was despite Shabbana’s protests concerning the financial implications and their son’s young age of 17.
Despite the opposition from both Shabbana and Aman, Shakeel remained resolute about the impending marriage. That is, until he made a call from Delhi one day to inform his family that he had, in fact, married Ayesha himself.
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‘The woman who was supposed to be my daughter-in-law has now become my husband’s wife,’ Shabbana lamented in a subsequent interview with Indian journalists.
Shakeel reportedly made frequent visits to Ayesha under the guise of making wedding preparations. However, his wife claims to have ‘suspected their affair from the very beginning‘.
When she bravely confronted her husband about her suspicions, he allegedly responded with verbal and even physical abuse. Undeterred, Shabbana continued to gather evidence. When she presented Aman with text messages exchanged between Shakeel and Ayesha, the 17-year-old quickly informed his father that the wedding was off.
Last month, after supposedly leaving for Delhi on work-related business, the 55-year-old made the now infamous call to his family, revealing his marriage to Ayesha, his son’s intended bride. What he conveniently neglected to mention was that he had also taken the family savings – more than 200,000 rupees (approximately £1,900) – and a quantity of gold jewellery.
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While theft typically carries a potential sentence of up to three years behind bars in India, local police informed the Times of India newspaper that no formal complaint has been filed, meaning they couldn’t take any action against Shakeel at present.
Intriguingly, this bizarre incident echoes a remarkably similar story that surfaced just a couple of months prior, where an Indian man eloped with his soon-to-be mother-in-law just nine days before he was due to marry her daughter. Indeed, as the old adage goes, ‘all is fair in love and war’.
