mumbai

Updated: Jun 24, 2015 22:19 IST

A 25-year-old woman from Mumbra wants to marry gangster Abu Salem who’s locked up in Taloja jail. She’s the same woman who was reported to have married him on a train to Uttar Pradesh on January 8 last year.

Now the woman has moved the TADA court in Mumbai seeking permission to formally marry Salem under the Special Marriages Act. She says her life has been ruined by the controversy generated by reports of the marriage on a train and that she might as well make it formal.

Salem was being taken to Lucknow to appear in a fake passport case when he met the woman and some of her family members on the train. Reports at the time said a priest had read the ‘nikah’ over the phone to marry Salem and the woman.

In an emotional application, the woman said that once the news spread, the police conducted an inquiry and distributed her photograph in the area she lived in. “I am known as Abu Salem’s wife in our area and among my relatives. Wherever I go, I am pointed out as Abu Salem’s wife; it has become difficult for me to go anywhere,” she said in her application to the court.

The woman claimed she had stopped attending college and that she had been defamed, her career spoiled and that she had lost all her friends. “Even our relatives are pointing fingers at me and my family; I feel like committing suicide as no other alternate is left for me due to such cheap publicity.”

Pleading with the court to grant permission to let her get officially married to Salem, the woman said, “As I have been defamed without any rhyme or reason, I would like to now take a bold step and get married to the said person Abu Salem.”

The court has after perusal of the application asked Salem and the prosecution to file a reply.