By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Following the police raid at the base of Qazi Ali Abdullah Rifai, prime accused in the contract marriage scandal involving minors, it has come to light that he had performed 450 marriages since 2014.

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The marriage certificate and blank papers holding the bride’s signature recovered from his Talabkatta house suggest most of these marriages were performed through illegal means, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South Zone) V Satyanarayana.

Rifai was booked by South Zone police under trafficking charges in connection with the international contract marriage scandal on September 26.

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Meanwhile, an Old City woman approached Chandrayangutta police alleging that Qazi Rifai had cheated her Omani husband of `5 lakh for performing their marriage and for issuing them a marriage certificate.

“The complainant, Asma Begum, 28, wanted to settle abroad and married a 28-year-old Omani Sheikh selected for her by the Qazi’s agents in January, 2017. Even her passport is in Rifai’s custody,” said SHO, Chandrayangutta police, Y Prakash Reddy citing her complaint.

On the grounds of Asma’s complaint, Rifai has been booked under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC. Rifai is popularly known as Volta Qazi and his late father was also a qazi.

He was suspended from his post by the state government after his name surfaced for involvement in contract marriages of Old City girls with Arabs in 2015. However, later, he received a stay order from a Hyderabad court.

According to the Qazi Ikramullah, who is Nazirul Khazzath at Telangana Wakf Board Office, the Wakf Board had never given him any syahdat for issuing nikahnama or marriage document.