Prime accused Albal Khan (Image: Dainik Bhaskar)
In what is commonly referred to as case of love jihad, a Hindu woman nearly escaped death in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore. The victim took the drastic step of taking her life following a delay in police investigations and the registration of her complaint. As of now, she is admitted to the MY Hospital in the city and her condition is critical. The accused allegedly threatened to spoil the life of her teenage daughter after raping and exploiting her for months. The police detained the prime accused, Mohammad Albab Khan, with his two siblings involved in the case under sections of gang rape.
The case concerns the jurisdictions of the Lasudia and Khajrana police stations, as the victim resides in Khajrana while her workplace, where she encountered the accused and stayed with him in hotel rooms, is situated in the Lasudia area.
For the sake of anonymity, we will refer to the victim in this report as Seema.
Seema, 34, informed the police that she runs a boutique in the Lasudia police station area following her separation from her husband a few years ago. She resides with her three children, including a teenage daughter and two sons aged 10 and 15, respectively. Seema also mentioned that she has an additional room in her house, which she rents out.
A man who identified himself as Lucky came to see the place as it was on OLX. Then he started calling frequently, as she owned a boutique, he said he was a wholesale dealer and gradually they began exchanging clothes and other stuff for sale. Soon they developed a friendship and started meeting and talking to each other.
Seema said, “Once Lucky invited me to meet him and took me to the Sanveer-Situated Welcome Hotel. After that, he offered me food. After eating, I started feeling sleepy and I fell unconscious. When I woke up, I found myself in the room. I felt something was wrong, but I didn’t tell anyone about the incident. After that, I stopped talking to him. He then called again to meet. Upon my refusal, he said that he had nude videos and photos of mine from Hotel Welcome, which he will make viral.”
She added, “I asked Lucky to delete the videos and photos by entrusting my children to him, to which Lucky said he would marry me. Giving the illusion of marriage, he made several physical relationships. Until then, I did not know about his reality. After gaining trust, Lucky started taking me to religious places. He first took me to some temples. After that, he took me to Ajmer, talking about getting married. Here too, he assured me that he would marry me and live together, separate from the family.”
Lucky said, “If you want to marry me, you’ll need money.” He asked her to become a guarantor for a bank loan. When they went to Bandhan Bank to take a loan of two lakhs, she filled out the form for the guarantor.
In the bank, she saw his documents, which bear the name Ablal Khan, including the photo, Aadhar card, and other documents. The truth came out that his name was Ablal Khan and he was a Muslim. When she confronted him he shamelessly said, “If you want to marry, you’ll have to convert your religion.”
Angry at this, when Seema said, “You deceived me,” he got angry and started arguing. When she mentioned complaining to the police, he said, “In our religion, four marriages are valid.”
He informed her about marrying a Muslim woman on January 7, 2024, and said, “Do whatever you want. You don’t recognise me. Many Hindu girls like you wander around me. Should I marry all of them?”
After this, he said, “If I establish a relationship with you, I’ll get jannat (heaven).”
On January 7, 2024, Ablal married a woman of his religion. The next day, he called the Hindu woman to meet at Hotel Shiv Om in Lasudia area. Instead of talking, there was a fight and he made a video. He said, “Don’t tell anyone about us. If you do, then be ready for consequences.”
On January 12, he called again to the same hotel and said, “I will delete all data from my mobile.” He forcefully took her to the room and assaulted her.
On January 15, he called on WhatsApp. When Seema refused to meet, he came to the shop. When she said she wanted to leave, he started arguing. Around 8:30 at night, he asked to talk for two minutes and stopped her on the way and asked to sit in the car.
After that, he threw her out of the car in the dark and ran away from there. Five people were standing in the dark. Among them was Ablal’s brother Vicky, also known as Abarar, along with three other people whom she didn’t know. They intimidated and threatened her, and attempted to force her.
As Abarar left, he said that it wouldn’t be good if this matter was told to anyone. “They would put my daughter into prostitution. Do what they say, otherwise, they’ll get my children involved in drug cases. You don’t know us. All these things scared me a lot”.
Subsequently, the woman endured daily torment. Seeking help, she approached the police on January 19 and met with DCP Abhisekikh Anand, who directed her to the Lasudia police station due to the incidents occurring in that locality. After multiple visits, her statement was finally recorded on January 23.
Albab was detained by the police on January 28 and 29. However, Seema withdrew her complaint shortly after.
Following Albab’s detention, Seema reportedly started receiving threats, not only directed at herself but also at her daughter and other children. The threats included pouring acid on her daughter and subjecting her to the same fate as Seema.
After receiving these threats, Seema ceased sending her daughter to school, withdrew her complaint, and on February 1, ingested poison. Prior to her suicide, she wrote a note to her relatives on the social networking application WhatsApp.
The note reads: “Repeatedly, those individuals approached me on the road and issued threats. I had intended to file a case against him from the beginning, but I was gripped by fear. I invoked my husband’s name because those people—the accused and his associates—had insinuated that they might end up in jail. However, how many of them would I send there? They were willing to sacrifice everything, just to shatter my daughter’s life, even if it ended up behind bars or on the gallows.
Please forgive me; I have brought shame upon all of you. This was never my intention. Yet, I was consumed by fear that if he truly carried out his threats, my children’s lives would be destroyed…
I envisioned a bright future for my children. Night after night, I lay awake, unable to rest, and I refrained from sending my daughter to school for many days out of fear that those individuals might harm her.
Fear held me back from filing a case. My children mean everything to me. Ever since I retracted the report against him, I have contemplated each day whether I should end my life. What manner of existence is this, to live in perpetual dread?
Please forgive me…”
As per Lasudia TI Taresh Soni, the woman had arrived to register a complaint, and her statement had been duly recorded. Investigations were underway at the location mentioned in her statement. Although she was encouraged to file an FIR regarding the incident, she declined. However, following further discussions with the woman, the case is now set to be officially registered.
Organiser called up PS Ranwat, in charge of Lasudia police station, on February 2, he said an FIR (number 122/2024) has been registered against the accused and the investigations are underway. He did not answer the question of charges being invoked against the perpetrators.
As per the reports, late in the evening on February 1, a case of gang rape was filed against Albab, also known as Lucky, son of Ajaz Khan residing in Tanzeem Nagar, along with his brothers Abrar, known as Vicky, and Anas Khan. Police assures that the accused will be apprehended promptly.
On February 1, Organiser reported a case from Hyderabad where an IT Engineer committed suicide after her live-in partner Mohammad Ali impregnated her on the pretext of marriage and dumped her to marry a co-religionst woman. Following the post-mortem, the police detained Ali and booked him for abetment to suicide. Notably, that woman, Aiditi Bharadwaj, was also in her thirties and separated from her husband.
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