Woman exposes 'unofficial' husband's flirtations on FB

Bengaluru, Jan 7: A Facebook post by a man’s unofficial wife has exposed his suspected philandering ways. Police are now hot on his trail following complaints by the unofficial spouse as well as his legally wedded wife of six months.

Minal (name changed), 28, filed a cheating complaint against Vazir Ahmed Shariff, whom she had met eight years ago through a common friend who introduced him as ‘Rajiv Ghatti’. Minal was floored by his impressive profile: MBA graduate, son of a DCP and owner of a hollow block factory. The two started meeting frequently and later decided to marry. Their “marriage” happened three years ago at Ganesha temple in Halasuru and they settled in Pulakeshinagar.

Minal began to suspect Shariff when he started coming home at odd hours. Suspicion soon gave way to shock when she stumbled on a photograph of him with another woman on a social networking site. When she confronted him, he claimed that the woman was his “sister”.

But Minal remained unconvinced and kept digging into her husband’s shady history. She got the shock of her life when she learnt that his real name was Vazir Ahmed Shariff and that he legally married a Muslim woman as early as in July 2016. When she confronted him with this information, he was dazed. He just blocked her number on his phone and went away.

“All these years, Shariff, on the pretext of developing his factory, took at least Rs 10 lakh from Minal,” said Revathi Rohira, her lawyer. Minal was working as a healthcare professional. She gave Shariff her jewellery and that of her mother when he had asked for money.

Explosive post

Minal decided to expose her “husband”. She created a fake profile on Facebook under the name ‘Md Yousuf’ and revealed all in an explosive post. “Vazir Shariff has cheated a woman in the name of love. He played games with her life and spoiled her. He had even taken several lakhs of rupees from her and got married to another woman to spoil her life. Forward dis message to all our Muslim brothers and sisters to keep away from him and his family (sic),” the post read.

Following the post, Minal was contacted by at least seven women who shared having similar experiences with Shariff, Revathi said.

Minal didn’t stop at that. She contacted Shariff’s legally wedded wife and explained everything to her. Initially, she didn’t believe her.

But when Minal gave her evidence in the form of chats and messages, she confronted her husband. Shariff took his wife to Kunigal and warned her against confiding in her parents. But her parents got to know about the matter anyway and took her away. They went on to file a dowry harassment complaint against Shariff and members of his family at the Hebbal police station. Meanwhile, Minal lodged a cheating complaint against him at the Pulakeshinagar police station. Other women are also considering filing separate complaints against Shariff for cheating them, Revathi said.

The Hebbal and Pulakeshinagar police, who are hunting for Shariff, have found his mobile phone switched off and his family members elusive. “We have summoned some of his friends and enquired about his whereabouts, but no arrests have been made,” a senior police officer said.