A 30-year-old employee of a private bank in Delhi was arrested in Greater Noida for allegedly raping an MBBS student and pressuring her to convert to Islam from Hinduism for marriage, police here said on Friday.
Besides the man, who lives in the Sangam Vihar area of Delhi, his 52-year-old father has also been arrested in connection with the case, the police said.
The complainant in the case is a 23-year-old MBBS student, currently enrolled in a medical college in Greater Noida but is originally from West Bengal, they said.
According to her, she and the accused had met on a social media site, where he hid his real identity so that he could become friends with her, which they did, and later they got into a physical relationship, police said.
"Eventually, she was sexually exploited by him and then forced into religious conversion, threatened and assaulted," Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Greater Noida) Dinesh Kumar Singh said.
"Accordingly, an FIR was lodged leading to the arrest of Mohammad Akhlaq and (his father) Mohammad Moin. Further investigation in the case is underway," Singh said.
A case has been lodged under Indian Penal Code sections 323 (assault), 504 (insult to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), 354c (voyeurism), 376 (rape) and under provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, the police said.
Dankaur Police Station In-charge Sanjay Kumar Singh told PTI that the aspiring doctor had first come across Akhlaq during her coaching days on a social media site where he had identified himself as Aditya Sharma.
"It was only in 2021 that both came face to face and she found out his real name. The accused told her that he had not revealed his real name, fearing she would stop interacting with him," Singh said.
The accused also hid from her that he was married with two children. She approached the police recently only after she found out he was married, the officer said.
"When informed about the matter, the father of the accused advised him to ask the girl to convert so that he could do a second marriage," Singh told PTI.
Both accused were picked up from their Delhi home for questioning and later arrested. They are currently in judicial custody, the officer added.