Angry wife foils plan for sixth marriage of ‘self-proclaimed baba’

Uttar Pradesh; According to police, Anuj Chetan Katheria of Shahjahanpur was arrested on Friday for allegedly marrying five women without being legally separated from his earlier wives, and honey-trapping other women. He was planning to marry for the sixth time before being arrested.

A self-described ‘baba’ has been arrested following a complaint by his wife, said the DCP of South Kanpur Police Raveena Tyagi. ‘She alleged that Anuj had married five women and was going to marry a sixth. The accused was arrested on Friday’, the police officer said.

Anuj Katheria got married for the first time in 2005, according to the initial investigation. According to his first wife, a resident of Mainpuri district, their divorce case is in court. Anuj married a woman from Bareilly district in 2010, who filed for divorce as well. He married a woman from the Auraiya district four years later. Then he married the cousin of his third wife, who allegedly committed suicide after learning the truth about his previous marriages.

In 2019, Anuj got married for the fifth time. After their wedding, Katheria allegedly began harassing her, following which a case was filed against him. ‘After the wedding, Anuj started harassing his fifth wife; she filed a complaint at the Chakeri police station last year. Since Anuj lives in the Kidwai Nagar police station area, the woman filed a complaint there as well,’ police said.

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It is not the first time that Anuj has been arrested. In 2016, the accused was arrested for raping the wife of his brother in Shahjahanpur. The police found that Anuj Katheria approached women on a marriage website under the name ‘Lucky Pandey’. Typically, he would introduce himself as a government teacher, a businessman, a tantric, or a cleric. During his online dating activities, Katheria would tell women that he was a BSc graduate, according to police.

After making connections with women on the marriage site, he called some to an ashram, where he performed ‘tantra-mantra’. Police said he used this ashram to trap women who sought a solution to their problems at his ashram. A probe revealed that Anuj had been in contact with 32 other women on the marriage portal as of Friday, the day of his arrest. Anuj was sent to jail in Shahjahanpur after his arrest while further investigation was underway, police said. He was charged under sections 420 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).