Akbar Khan locked at the bride’s house. Picture by Pankaj Singh

Bokaro, March 27: A wedding reception went terribly awry for the 40-odd people who had arrived here from Deoghar with the groom, an automobile engineer, yesterday.

While Akbar Khan arrived here to marry the younger daughter of Naseem Ansari, an electrician at Chas, his first wife, a Hindu, played spoilsport by lodging a complaint with Deoghar SP Manoj Kaushik. Satisfied with the evidence produced by her, Kaushik called up his counterparts in Bokaro-Chas and inspector Vijay Kumar was dispatched to break the news to the bride’s family.

The groom and his guests were immediately roughed up before being taken hostage and denied food or water. The 13 Hindu guests were let off this morning because of Ram Navami. The groom, however, was detained in two small rooms till afternoon before he was released.

The release followed an unconditional apology by the bride’s father, an electrician. He had arranged to marry off both his daughters on the same day. While the elder daughter was married off during the daytime, the younger one was to get married last evening.

Khan’s wife, Geeta Devi, claimed that they had registered their marriage in the temple as well as the court. But her husband was concealing the fact and had left for Chas to marry another woman, she told the Deoghar SP.

The incident has generated a lot of interest because of the unusual circumstances. While it is a common belief that Muslims are not only allowed to marry four times but actually do so, in this case members of the Muslim community unitedly opposed the marriage. That they in the process upheld the rights of the groom’s Hindu wife is again another unusual aspect of the high drama. Finally, the role of the police, which reacted promptly to the complaint, has become a talking point. The incident should deter other adventurers like the automobile engineer, is the consensus. The fate of the Hindu wife and the woman who escaped getting married to a trickster are not yet known, however.