Dubai: A businessman beat up a housewife in a mosque after she refused to date him and turned down his sexual advances, a court heard on Tuesday.

The 43-year-old Bangladeshi housewife was said to have received a phone call from an unknown number and the caller offered her a job in March.

When the housewife asked the caller how he got her phone number, according to records, the caller, a 37-year-old Bangladeshi businessman, claimed that he got it from a cafeteria’s deliveryman.

The 43-year-old woman instantly hung up the phone once the caller asked her to become his date and have sex with him.

Two days later when the woman went to pray at the mosque, the businessman took her by surprise and came from behind and beat her up brutally.

Police and an ambulance were summoned to the mosque where the alleged attack happened and the 37-year-old Bangladeshi was apprehended.

Prosecutors charged the suspect with assaulting the housewife and causing her 25 per cent permanent disability.

Dubai Police’s forensic examiner confirmed that the woman sustained a permanent blurred vision.

The suspect pleaded not guilty when he showed up before the Dubai Court of First Instance last week.

The housewife told prosecutors: “When he called and asked me over the phone to date him and become his mistress, I refused and told him that I am an upright woman and do not follow that indecent path. Later he attacked me in the mosque while I was praying … he threw me down on the floor of the mosque and repeatedly punched me. He broke my cheekbone and bruised my eye.”

A policeman testified to prosecutors that the suspect said during questioning that he had been having an affair with the woman but denied beating her.

The trial continues.