Police in India have arrested a man for allegedly marrying at least 15 women he met on matchmaking websites and fathering children with some of them.
The accused has been identified as Mahesh KB Naik, who often pretends to be an engineer or a doctor and has been allegedly conning women into marriage.
The country’s English-language newspaper Times of India reported, citing police sources, that the accused even set up a (fake) clinic in the southern Karnataka state’s Tamakuru town for the purpose, where they hired a nurse to show him the truth. was also employed.
Police sources said the accused mostly targeted single women who were financially independent but whose education was often suspect due to their poor English.
This section contains related reference points (Related Nodes field).
The accused had reportedly studied only up to the fifth standard.
According to reports, Naik has been married to at least 15 women since 2014 and has children with four of them.
According to The New Indian Express newspaper, his female victims were either divorced or widowed and felt ashamed to report them due to social stigma. The accused even allegedly robbed them of their valuables.
The report said that he was arrested based on the complaint of a 45-year-old software engineer whom he married this year.
The woman, Himalta, informed the police that he was forcing her to provide money to set up his new clinic and later fled with jewelery worth 8 lakh Indian rupees and 1.5 lakh in cash.
Based on his complaint, the authorities formed a team to trace the accused and arrested him in Tamakuru.
Meanwhile, it also came to light that Naik’s father had registered a case of attempted murder against him.