Husband ek, humera do

Mumbai, June 10: Thane resident Meghana Shah finds that her husband of two years, has another wife. Says he insisted on calling her Humera, which incidentally is also the first wife’s name

If you want to know what’s in a name, ask a conman. A man married two women and named them both ‘Humera’ to make life easier for him. And the trick worked for two years, till his luck finally ran out on Sunday, when both women met each other and found out the truth.

Meghana Shah (name changed to protect identity), a 27-year-old animator from Ghatkopar, married a Vikram Badani, two years ago. The couple had run into each other on a networking site. “He told me he was a Gujarati bachelor who worked as a software engineer with a Bandra-based firm. We soon started meeting. He was warm and charming and I didn’t suspect a thing. I decided to marry him but my parents had refused to give their consent. At the time, he had told me his parents were also dead against our match and had declined to attend our wedding. It was during the registration process at court that he told me he wanted to name me Humera. He said he had always loved the name and I agreed.”

Though Shah’s parents came around to the marriage, she said her husband started telling her upsetting stories about his life. “He said his parents were threatening to kill themselves if I didn’t grant him a divorce. So I gave in and signed our divorce papers. We, however, continued to live together at a rented flat in Thane,” she said.

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Ateeq Sheikh (right) allegedly called both his wives by the same name in order to create confusion about the marriage certificate and nikahnama

Humera meets Humera

On Sunday a woman named Humera called up Shah and asked to speak with her husband Ateeq Sheikh. “The woman alleged I had forced her husband into marring me. She said she was worried because he hadn’t gone home for 20 days. I calmly asked her to come over. She did, only to make the shocking revelations. Vikram Badani was actually Ateeq Sheikh, who had married his first wife nine years ago. They even had two children together, aged four and six.”

Ateeq’s tall stories

Ateeq had allegedly concocted tall stories again. He had told his first wife that Shah’s family members had criminal backgrounds and that she had forced him to marry her. The first wife, Humera Sheikh, a resident of Rabodi area in Thane, said, “I had trusted him. But when Ateeq did not come home for a long time, I started looking for Shah with help from his friends. He had named both of us Humera to create confusion and avoid being implicated by our marriage certificates.”

Sheikh’s luck runs out

The two women approached Vartak Nagar police station and registered a case of cheating and harassment against Sheikh. Megha Bukhande, sub-inspector at the station, said, “Sheikh is actually a networking engineer and works with a firm in Bandra. He has duped both women by hiding facts. We have arrested him and he will be produced in court on Wednesday.”

—–Agencies