T’gana cops hunt for man who married 7 women and fled
When the police called him to the police station, Babu brought another woman to stand surety for the amount. He told the police that he would return the money soon.
Telangana police are on the lookout for a 35-year-old man who married as many as seven women in a span of four years, and absconded with the money and gold collected from them.
The accused was identified as Adapa Shivshankar Babu of Bethapudi village, Mangalagiri block, in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, said police.
The issue came to the light when one of the victims lodged a complaint with Ramachandrapuram police under Cyberabad police commissionerate limits on May 16 stating that Babu had taken ₹25 lakh cash and gold worth ₹7 lakh from her and is not returning the same.
When the police called him to the police station, Babu brought another woman to stand surety for the amount. He told the police that he would return the money soon.
“We have registered a cheating case under Section 420 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the accused, on the basis of a complaint from a woman. The woman has said that Babu took huge amount of money and gold from her after marrying her. A manhunt has been launched for Babu,”said inspector of police of Ramachandrapuram police station T Sanjay Kumar.
“We will include other charges against him under the IPC, including polygamy,” said Kumar.
During a press conference on Wednesday, the complainant said Babu got in touch with her in 2021 via a matrimony site. He told her that his parents had died long ago and that he had been working as a software engineer in a reputed firm with a monthly salary of ₹ 2 lakh. He told her that he was a divorcee and was looking for a compatible wife, she said.
After being convinced of his credentials, her parents got her married to Babu. “He even got the marriage registered saying it was necessary for us to go to the US for a project. He collected nearly ₹25 lakh from my parents on the pretext of taking me to the US. But when there were no signs of him going to the US, my parents started asking him to return the money. And he started avoiding us,” she said.
Finally, she approached the Ramachandrapuram police, who called Babu to the police station for questioning. There she came to know that he had married another woman with whom he had come to the police station. She realised that the other woman was a resident in her neighbourhood.
She met the other woman secretly and inquired about him. Later, they came to know of another woman in the same colony who was also married to Babu. “He used to cheat us saying he was going on day shifts and night shifts and spending time with each of us,” the complainant said.
Subsequent probe revealed that Babu had married thrice since 2018 and had cheated all of them by producing fake divorce papers and promising them a new life. “He is now absconding with his seventh wife,” the complainant said.
Babu allegedly targeted rich women who were divorced and were looking for alliances on matrimony sites. “We came to know that he had collected lakhs of rupees from each woman after marrying her on various pretexts,” she said.
She also came to know that there were cheating cases pending against him in other police stations, including Kukatpally, Gachibowli and SR Nagar in Hyderabad and even in Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh.
