Scared after a woman and her lover killed her husband, chopped up his body and dumped it in a cement-lined drum in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut and another such couple hired a contract killer in Auraiya, a man from another part of the state decided to take an unusual step to ward off any potential risk to his life. The man got his wife wedded to her lover of 18 months and even became a witness to the marriage.
Bablu, from Katar Jot Village in Sant Kabir Nagar, had married Radhika, who is from Gorakhpur district, in 2017 and has two children with her. Bablu works as a labourer in another state and found out that his wife had been having an affair with Vikas from his village for nearly a year and a half. He decided to return to the village without telling her and then began tracking her to confirm the information.
Villagers said that when his suspicions were confirmed, Bablu did not berate his wife or even argue with her. He informed the village elders about the affair and decided that she should marry her lover.
Bablu got Radhika married as per Hindu customs at a Shiva temple and also completed the legal process by becoming a witness and getting the marriage notified in court.
The labourer also decided to take custody of his two children with Radhika and said he would raise them alone.
Videos showed Radhika marrying Vikas surrounded by her children and other villagers. Vikas can be seen applying sindoor to Radhika’s forehead after they exchange garlands and Bablu even poses for a photo with the couple after their marriage.
‘Wanted To Avoid Harm’
Asked why he had decided to take the unusual step, Bablu told news agency PTI, “I decided to arrange their marriage to avoid potential harm to myself. In recent days, we have seen that husbands have been killed by their wives… After seeing what happened in Meerut, I decided to get my wife married to her lover so that we can both live peacefully.”
To a question on the legality of the marriage since he and Radhika are not divorced, Bablu said it was legal because it took place in the presence of villagers and no family members objected.
Trigger
Muskan and her lover Sahil drugged and killed her husband Saurabh, a former Navy officer, in Meerut earlier this month and cut his body before dumping it in a drum lined with cement, sending shockwaves across the country. Muskan, 27, had made Sahil believe he was getting messages from his dead mother via social media messaging app Snapchat and had used this to convince him to kill Saurabh on March 3, after he returned from London for the birthday of his six-year-old daughter. Leaving the body in the drum, Muskan and Sahil had gone to Shimla and Manali and even celebrated Holi there.
In Auriaya, 22-year-old Pragati Yadav and her lover decided to kill her husband, Dilip, just two weeks after her parents forced her to marry him. The couple hired a contract killer and Dilip was found lying with bullet wounds in a field on March 19. The 25-year-old died in a hospital the next day.
(With inputs from Pankaj Gupta)