Patna: Police in Bihar have arrested a man who had been staying in a southern Indian town with a fake identity for over 20 years after staging his own kidnapping.
Mohammad Shoab, a resident of Araria district in Bihar, had gone mysteriously missing in 1996 shortly after he was caught with a girl and the local village court subsequently ordered his marriage to the girl. But soon after his marriage, the man fled the scene and settled in Mahbubnagar district in Telangana with a fake identity. Subsequently, his father registered a case of kidnapping against the judges of the local village court while his wife Biwi Kalila registered a case of dowry torture in the court.
Both cases remained under investigation and in due course, the court issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against the missing man who had failed to appear despite repeated summons in the dowry harassment case.
Reports said Bihar authorities were perturbed over repeated reprimands by the court over the cops’ failure to trace the missing man and had been clueless about his whereabouts when they got information that the accused has been arrested by the Delhi police in a case. However, by the time the Bihar police team reached there, the man had walked out on bail.
Based on leads provided by the Delhi police, a team of Bihar police raided a place in Telanaga earlier this week and arrested the man, who was brought to Bihar on Friday. He has been sent to jail and the trial of the case will begin next week.
“His arrest was a major challenge for us and we have done it finally. The cunning criminal had been hiding in Telanaga with his fake name of Jamal Khan,” a local sub-divisional police official Kumar Devendra Singh told Gulf News.
According to the police, during his stay in Telanaga the accused not only changed his name but also married a woman. In due course, he became a father of four children.
His arrest has come as a major relief to those accused in his kidnapping case as the trial in the case had reached the final stage and the judgement was to be delivered soon. Police said his arrest will lead to immediate acquittal of those accused in his alleged kidnapping.
