Mumbai, December 06: When Byculla girl Afasha Sheikh first met her fiancé Abdullah Sayed, it didn’t take her long to agree to the marriage.
By all accounts Sayed was a good catch-he was young, with average if unexceptional looks and to boot, he was an NRI who worked with Emirates Airlines.
But the image of her groom unravelled-quite literally-on the wedding night. As Afasha, 25, waited with breathless anxiety turn to and anticipation, she saw her husband leisurely sit on the bed and proceed to take off his wig and then to her utter horror, his dentures.
An unsuspecting Afasha Sheikh with Abdullah Sayed at their wedding on Thursday. Abdullah as he is at the Mazgaon Metropolitan Magistrate’s court on Saturday
Confronted with this metamorphosis, she did a quick transformation herself from coy bride to avenging angel: she packed her bags and then lodged a complaint against Sayed for cheating and impersonation.
Afasha and Abdullah had got married on Thursday at Minara Masjid at Pydhonie, from where they proceeded to Midtown Hotel at Andheri to spend their wedding night. “When he removed his wig and artificial teeth, he looked horrible and much older than his age.
It came as a terrible shock,” said an agitated Afasha. She rushed to her parents’ home at Sakhli Street in Byculla, and narrated the incident to her mother, Sajida Shaikh, 50, who immediately registered a complaint with the Agripada police.
Abdullah and his father, Azgar Miya Hussain, 53, were on Friday booked under Section 419 (impersonation) and Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.
According to the police, Abdullah was introduced to Afasha’s family by a common friend, Sukhada, in early May. “Abdullah told us that he worked with Emirates Airlines, and that his father Azgar was a Customs Department employee in Dubai.
As the family was based in Mumbai and owns a house at Jogeshwari, we readily agreed to the proposal,” said Afasha’s uncle, Shaukat Sheikh.
Afasha and Abdullah got engaged at a traditional ceremony on May 29. At the function, no one had the slightest suspicion that Abdullah’s healthy head of hair or his set of pearly whites were fake.
Afasha, who met him several times during their long engagement, never found anything amiss about her fiance’s appearance. Until the wedding night, that is.
Shakeel Wagle, another uncle of Afasha, said, “Soon after the engagement, Abdullah made a few trips to Dubai.
But he was constantly in touch with my niece and her family. He demanded Rs 5 lakh from us, but we refused to give him the money.”
Worse still, all the jewellery given to Afasha for the wedding turned out to be fake, alleges her family.
Abdullah and Azgar were produced in the Mazgaon Metropolitan Magistrate’s court on Saturday. “They have been remanded to judicial custody till December 18,” said Sanjeevrao Mandalik, Police Inspector (Crime), of the Agripada police station.
–Agencies