’Let me marry Salem, or I’ll kill myself’

 

Thane, 29 June 2015: The 25-year-old Mumbai girl who is seeking to marry Abu Salem has threatened to kill herself if her application before the TADA court for permission to tie the nuptials with the jailed gangster is not considered favourably by the court authorities. 

 

In her six-page application (the copies of which are in possession of this newspaper) Sayyed Bahaar Kausar (25) claims to have been completely devastated and distressed because of her reported nikaah with the gangster on board a Lucknow-bound train in 2014. 

 

"I have been defamed and my name and image has been tarnished to a great extent. My life has become difficult ... no other alternative is left for me, except to get married to Abu Salem and if not then to commit suicide," said Kausar in her June 15 application to the TADA court in Mumbai. 

 

A commerce graduate from a local college, the 25-year-old has sought permission of the court for Salem to be brought to Mumbai at the office of the registrar of marriages to sign on the documents and formalize their nikkah under the Special Marriage Act. Salem is presently serving time in Taloja jail.

 

 "I have taken the bold step to get married to Abu Salem...and permission be granted so that I can get our names registered with the registrar of marriages, Mumbai... and to allow him to attend before the registrar for half-an-hour or so for completing the said procedure of getting married and nothing beyond this. So that atleast I will be saved from the taunts, names and disrespect from the society," Kausar said in her application. 

 

Insisting that her decision to marry the incarcerated gangster was more of a compulsion, she blamed the police for undue victimization by circulating the "morphed" photographs of her with the gangster.

 

"The police called me and my friend for inquiry but instead of making inquiries with her the police slapped her and till date she is under shock. I am ashamed to show her my face as she had not done anything then too why such an attitude towards her," the application said. 

 

Kausar claimed that the alleged police harrassment has so led to their relatives and neighbours maintaing a distance from them. "They (the police) visited my relatives in Azamgarh, Lucknow Gujarat and now the relatives are also not on talking terms with us due to media reports and humiliation by the police."

 

The present situation, she claimed, has only made her ineligible for marriage as her husband would always view her with suspicion and link her to Salem.

 

"If at all I get married to someone, I do not expect my husband to be good to me and that he will not question me about the news report and if there is any petty issue, I will be tortured as to how my photograph came along with Abu Salem. Nobody would understand the real cause behind it that it could have been morphed," Kausar said. 

 

She is presently staying with her mother, maternal grandfather and her elder brother. The family is believed to have endorsed her decision to tie the nuptials with Salem.