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NOIDA: A 29-year-old man, a Hindu, has been detained on charges of kidnapping and forcing a Muslim woman to marry him.

However, the woman has claimed that she married the man out of her own free will in a court in Deoria on September 13. Noida police say they will have to check the authenticity of the marriage certificate.

The police action came despite the Allahabad high court on September 19 this year directing the Uttar Pradesh government to inform it about the steps being taken to provide protection to the people who entered into inter-caste or interfaith marriages.

According to the 20-year-old woman, she had met the man around three years back. “The man was staying near our rented accommodation in Sector 8 in Noida. We liked each other and decided to marry. We informed my parents but they were not ready to accept my friend,” she said.

However, as the woman’s family got wind of their relationship, they apparently asked the man’s landlord to get his room in Sector 8 vacated. But the couple kept in touch over the phone and eventually decided to elope.

While the couple fled to the man’s elder sister’s place in Deoria on the night of September 6, the woman’s family lodged a police complaint against her friend on September 10, alleging that their daughter had been kidnapped by the Hindu man who was forcing her to marry him.

Subsequently, an FIR was lodged against the man, who works with a private company, at the Sector 20 police station under IPC Section 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing woman to compel her marriage).

And on September 13 this year, the man and the woman got married in a local court in Deoria. The couple got their marriage registered too and a copy of the certificate is with TOI.

However, soon after the woman’s family got wind about her marriage with the Hindu man, her mother allegedly called her up, saying that the family was ready to accept their relationship. She asked both of them to come home once.

“My mother told me to meet her once. Soon, we left Deoria for Noida in a train. However, my mother informed the railway police in Deoria and they caught my husband,” she said.

The GRP exchanged the information with Noida police and a team from Sector 20 police station allegedly detained the man.

The couple were brought to Noida on Monday afternoon, police said.

While the man was kept confined in the lock-up of Sector 20 police station since Monday afternoon, the woman kept sitting inside the police station and alleged that she was being pressurised by her family to leave him.

“They are telling me that I can marry someone else and leave him. They are not ready to accept him,” she said, adding that she does not want to leave the love of her life.

Contacted, Swetabh Pandey, circle officer I, said Prakash will be produced before the court on Tuesday, which will decide on the veracity of the marriage certificate.

