Man booked for stalking woman who refused to marry him

A man has been booked for stalking and harassing a woman after she refused to marry him. The accused shared her pictures with relatives and blackmailed her.

MUMBAI: The Chembur police have booked a man for allegedly stalking and harassing a 28-year-old woman after she refused to marry him. The woman complained that the accused, whom she had met on a matrimonial site in 2020, started stalking her and sharing her pictures with him amongst her relatives after her refusal.

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Senior inspector Nagraj Majge from Chembur police station said that a case was registered against the accused based on the woman’s statement, but he has not been arrested yet. The accused works in a private firm as a medical representative and lives in Thane, said the officer.

According to the police, the victim and accused used to speak on the phone and exchange messages on WhatsApp after meeting on the matrimonial site. The accused proposed to the woman and his mother also her house in Chembur on one occasion to discuss their wedding plans.

However, the woman’s family claimed that the accused demanded ₹20 lakh as dowry, following which they called off the engagement. He then started following her to her office and home and blackmailed her, threatening to share purportedly obscene photos and videos of her that he had taken with her relatives.

When he learned that she recently got engaged to someone else and their wedding was fixed in December, he contacted the groom and showed him the pictures, claiming he was in a relationship with her.

The woman changed her mobile number in a bid to ward off the accused. But he sent her photos to her family members and threatened to make them viral on social media. An FIR was registered after the woman’s father approached Vinayak Deshmukh, additional police commissioner, east region and narrated the ordeal.