Woman who duped her 11 husbands arrested

NOIDA: It could well be the real-life enactment of the Bollywood film, Dolly Ki Doli . Like Sonam Kapoor, who plays the devious dulhan in the movie, Megha Bhargav too saw matrimony as her road to wealth, so much so that the 28-year-old sat on the wedding mandap allegedly with 11 wealthy men. If police had not caught up with her in Noida on Saturday, her hoard of gold and silver jewellery would have presumably gone up, given her modus operandi of dumping husbands and vanishing with their riches.The tipoff came after Loren Justin of Kochi registered a case in October against his “wife” Megha, who, he alleged, had disappeared with jewellery worth Rs 15 lakh sometime after the nuptials.After a two-month probe, a police team from Kerala, assisted by Noida Police, arrested Bhargav, her sister Prachi and her brother-in-law Devendra Sharma from Amrapali Zodiac Society in Sector 120.Justin was the fourth man from Kerala that Bhargav had duped, the Kerala cops realised. She had married three others earlier and left them similarly poorer though only Justin approached the police.The investigators said the woman would identify rich but matrimonially disadvantaged men — divorcees, those with physical disabilities, or dark-complexioned aspirants who despaired of ever finding partners — and win them over. After marrying them, she would stay with them for a while, biding her time till an opportune moment when she could spike a beverage with sedatives and make off with all the valuables in the house.“Since the bride was good looking, several men easily fell into her trap,” said inspector Sunil of Kerala Police. The woman was helped in identifying the carefully researched victims by an associate called Mahendra, who is being pursued by police, having escaped Saturday’s raid in Noida.The police team from Kerala had reached Noida last week in Bhargav’s pursuit and had started tracking the location of the con woman. They finally brought her run to an end on Saturday.After her arrest, Bhargav, originally a resident of Indore, admitted to having married four men, including Justin. However, she vehemently denied that she had duped them. She claimed she opted out of the marriages when her relationship with her “husbands” deteriorated. The 28-year-old has been taken to Kochi on a transit remand to face charges there.