Beed youth duped of Rs 2.5 lakh in marriage fraud; bride found to be a 15-year-old with fake Aadhaar

Young men in Marathwada are struggling to find brides, and some gangs are exploiting the problem to extort money. A case that has caused anger has now emerged from Gevrai taluka in Beed district, where a youth was cheated of Rs 2.5 lakh on the pretext of arranging his marriage. Social workers claim a large inter-state racket is behind it.

According to the information available, middlemen from Jafrabad in Jalna district were approached for the Gevrai youth's marriage. His biodata was given on June 22. The middlemen then sent a photograph of a girl and arranged a meeting in Jafrabad. The youth's family went there on October 1 to see her. They were told that the girl had no father and that Rs 2.5 lakh would have to be paid towards the wedding expenses.

The family is poor. It agreed to pay by taking an advance for the coming season (2026-27) from a sugarcane-harvesting contractor.

As agreed, the group came to Gevrai by car on October 5. Rs 25,000 each was transferred to two separate PhonePe accounts, and the remaining Rs 2 lakh was handed over to the middlemen in cash. The wedding was then performed with Hindu rites by a priest at the youth's home in Gevrai.

Just two days after the wedding, the bride began insisting on going to her parents' home. The groom asked her to go after the Dussehra festival was over. The girl then revealed the truth and said plainly that the marriage was part of a plot to grab money and jewellery. When the middlemen were phoned, they gave evasive replies. Realising he had been cheated, the youth went straight to the police station and gave a written complaint.

On October 19, the girl herself went to the police station and recorded her statement. A new Aadhaar card had been made to show her age as 20 in the records, but the inquiry found that her actual age is only 15 years and 8 months, making her a minor. In her statement she admitted that she was brought to Gevrai against her will and married off, and that she too had been deceived.

Gevrai police produced her before the Child Welfare Committee, which sent her on to a remand home. Police are now searching closely for the racket. The gang crushed the hopes of a youth who had taken a sugarcane-harvesting advance in the dream of settling down. The girl's mother has also told the Child Welfare Committee that she too was deceived.

Ashok Tangde, president of the committee, has appealed to parents and young men to be careful. "Many gangs are active that wrongly exploit the problem of young men not finding brides to extort money. Do not be taken in by such people," he said.

Social worker Ganesh Dhawale expressed sharp anger and said the drought and the problem of marriages not being arranged have become serious in Marathwada. He said girls are being bought and sold from Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and other states by exploiting this, with rates of Rs 3 lakh to Rs 10 lakh being charged. According to him, the girls' parents also appear to be involved. There is a growing demand that police break up the racket and immediately stop the financial and mental exploitation of young men who wish to marry.