Indian Bride Caught after Eloping with Cash & Jewellery

An Indian bride has been arrested after she was caught running away with cash and jewellery the night before her wedding.

Deepali Rao, aged 36, from Wardha Tehsil in Amravati, Maharashtra, was part of a gang that regularly carries out such crimes.

The other members were Umar Nazir Shah, aged 36, Narayan Sharma, aged 44, and Vijay Kumar Sharma, aged 28.

Narayan Sharma had approached his neighbour Rajesh Kumar Sharma and told him that it was time for him to get married.

He told him about a girl who he knew of called Deepali and also arranged for the pair to meet at his house, which they did.

The criminals demanded Rs. 1 Lakh (£1,000) from Sharma which he happily paid, potentially thinking it was a matchmaking fee.

Rao and Sharma were legally married at a court in Jaipur on June 14, 2021, and began living together following this.

It was then decided that they would have a wedding ceremony just six days after their marriage, on June 20, 2021.

However, the night before the wedding, Rao collected all of the cash and jewellery from Sharma’s house before fleeing.

For several days, Sharma and his family interrogated Narayan and Vijay, who lived in the same village as them.

This was when it emerged that another person, a man named Mohammad Vakil, was also involved in the extortion scheme.

After gathering some more details, Sharma filed a case against the criminal gang with Jaipur Police on July 8, 2021.

They were caught in December 2021 after their mobile phone details were obtained and the force managed to track each of their locations.

It comes after a similarly elaborate scam from Gujarat in June 2021.

Another Indian bride ran away on her wedding day after reportedly conning the groom out of Rs. 200,000 (£1,900).

It was reported that she ran away with the money along with her brother and the man who organised the marriage process.

Businessman Ankit Jain, aged 38, of Karnataka, had been looking for a wife and had found someone to help out with this.

A man named Satish Patel suggested a woman named Swati Bhatt and Jain agreed by simply seeing a photo of her.

As part of the agreement, Ankit had to pay Rs. 170,000 (£1,700) to the bride’s brother Hitesh Trivedi.

He also had to pay Rs. 30,000 (£300) to Satish as commission.

The businessman handed over the money and travelled to Gujarat to meet Swati.

His mother also gave the bride a gold ring worth Rs. 20,000 (£200), silver anklets worth Rs. 1,400 (£14) and a sari.

However, during the wedding, the bride went to the bathroom and never returned.