All's fair in love - Groom kidnapped at gunpoint

Ashok Yadav at the wedding

Piyush Srivastava, TT, Lucknow, May 17: Bollywood is replete with scenes of wronged lovers whisking their sweetheart away from mandaps just when she is being married off forcibly to someone else, flexing muscles and wielding guns. Now, the set piece has been turned on its head.

A young woman in Uttar Pradesh last night kidnapped a groom from the mandap at gunpoint, threatening his family members and guests to stay away as she was only trying to protect her love of 10 years.

Firmly holding the revolver in her hand, the woman declared that she wouldn't mind firing a shot or two if anybody stood in her way. She pushed the groom into the SUV in which she had arrived, took the steering wheel and drove off.

The occasion was the wedding of Ashok Yadav, son of farmer Ramhet Yadav of Mohanpurva village in Banda district, with the daughter of Ram Sajeevan alias Lallu Yadav of Bhawani village in adjoining Hamirpur district in the Bundelkhand region. The marriage was being held on a college ground in Bhawani, 200km from Lucknow.

Police said Ashok and the woman who kidnapped her, both in their late 20s, worked as paramedics in a private clinic in Banda town 100km away and had been in a relationship since their school days.

"But Ashok's family fixed his marriage with another girl. He could not summon the courage to protest. His lover's family too was not supportive of the relationship. Having no other option, the woman borrowed the SUV of a friend, took her father's licensed revolver, reached the marriage venue and kidnapped the groom from the mandap," a police officer in Lucknow said.

The bride said Ashok had "resisted" when the woman pulled him by the hand but when he and the others noticed the pistol, none protested. "I want justice," the bride said, asked what she wanted now.

The police officer said prima facie, the woman had committed a crime. "But we are not for taking action against her simply because she is a desperate lover. She has the right to win back the man she loves. The local police have told Ramhet to accept the truth and ask his son to respect the woman whom he had promised to marry," he added.

The couple are yet to be traced. No written police complaint has yet been lodged against the woman, the daughter of a small farmer in Chhatarpur district in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh.

Ramhet told reporters he didn't know that his son was in a relationship. "I don't know whether he is alive. However, I will go by my son's wish," Ramhet said, adding that the marriage had been called off.

B.K. Mishra, the additional superintendent of police of Hamirpur, said his department was aware of the incident. "We have received a verbal complaint from the groom's relatives and are probing the case," he said.

Anil Singh, the officer in charge of Kotwali police station in Hamirpur, said garlands had been exchanged but the couple were yet to take the seven rounds of the fire when the woman arrived. "They are untraceable. We are trying to locate them," Singh said.