Jammu-based kingpin, brokers, clerics in Valley involved in sale of Rohingya girls

Traps laid to lure prospective grooms for Rs 1.5 -2.0 lakhs

Muhammad Mukaram

A nexus involving eligible bachelors, minor Rohingya girls, greedy clerics and brokers has surfaced in the Kashmir Valley, sending alarm bells in the society about an unchecked menace that is shattering dreams, devastating lives and breaking marriage laws and matrimony ethics.
First, a trap is laid through agents and brokers, manipulating prospective grooms coming from underprivileged socio-economic ladder and then arranging ‘Nikah’ through willing collaborators in clerics. The brokers involved in the process demand an amount between Rs 1,50,000 and 200,000 from prospective grooms.
Farooq Mir, 45, hailing from south Kashmir’s Pokhribal in the Khrew area, is one such groom who was trapped. How his marriage was arranged through brokers and Nikah performed by clerics comes across as a Bollywood script.
At the outset, Mir received a call from a distant cousin at around 11 p.m about a marriage proposal. Since age was not on his side, he was keen to get married. The would-be-bride was a Rohingya girl, he was told.

Mir got excited about the proposal but asked his relative to await confirmation. Before nodding in agreement, Farooq took his brothers and relatives counsel.
The ‘marriage’ was performed in August 2022 in presence of local cleric from Kulgam district and along with three other persons including relatives. With the aim to meet expenditures of his marriage, Mir had first contemplated selling his share of poplar trees for about Rs 200,000.
Though not getting a green signal for selling trees, Mir’s brother instead arranged Rs 150,000 to meet the expenses.
But what followed was nightmarish. Only two month after the marriage was solemnized, the Rohingya bride, possibly a minor, fled on October 14.
“My wife Rozi Jan left home at about 5 pm, saying that she would spend a night at one of his uncle’s place. Next evening, I requested my uncle to send Rozi back home. He was shocked and thought I was cracking a joke,” Mir told STATE TIMES.
According to Mir, his uncle said that he had no idea what he was talking about. “Your wife didn’t come here. How can I send her back when she is not at our home,” the uncle told his cousin.
Subsequently, the search for Rozi intensified. Someone in the neighbourhood informed the family that the Rohingya bride had left in a Sumo Car at around 5 p.m. Growing suspicious about the whole affair, Mir rushed to his home only to see that Rozi had allegedly taken all her clothing, cash amounting to Rs 10,000 and golden ring and earring from their cupboard.
“We were together for about two months during which I got a new mobile phone device costing Rs 20,000 for her. I was under the impression that Rozi had gelled well with our family in quick time. Though she could neither speak our language (Kashmiri) nor in chaste Urdu. I am appalled how she fled and how I was trapped,” Mir told STATE TIMES with a sigh.
Mohammad Ramzan, a broker from Razwoos, a small village near to Pampore, had arranged at least ten marriages of Rohingya girls including Mir’s marriage. In presence of Maulvi Imran, a cleric who also leads prayer at Pokhribal’s central mosque, five to six girls were paraded before Mir for selection, that is according to Mir. He was allegedly told to select one for his marriage.
After Mir selected a girl of his choice, an amount of 1,50,000 rupee was finalised after Maulvi Imran allegedly bargained on behalf of Mir with someone residing in Jammu who had demanded 1,75,000 for the whole deal. “Immediately, one lakh rupee was given in cash to Ramzan to seal the deal,” said Mir’s uncle.
When this correspondent went to Ramzan’s residence to investigate the matter, he said that at the moment he does not have any more Rohingya girls to ‘sell’. Interestingly, Ramzan is himself married to a woman from the Rohingya community.
Ramzan aka Puppa resides in two dingy rooms and is known for arranging Rohingya girls for Kashmiri men.
This correspondent asked him if he could arrange one Rohingya bride for a friend of his with the objective to gather more details about the nexus. Ramzan confidently said that he would arrange a girl within next couple of days and that he would charge us 1,75,000 rupee, excluding the cost of Nikah and Mehr ( a fixed amount the groom has to pay for her bride as per his wealth as per mandatory Islamic law).
After a gap of three days, this correspondent visited Ramzan’s house once more for an update, but the broker was missing from the scene along with his wife and also Rozi.
There, Ramzan’s elder brother told us that he had warned his brother to discontinue such malpractice but he remained adamant. He had been suspicious of his brother’s activities for quite some time now. Once he had asked Ramzan’s wife whether she had blood relation with the other eight Rohingya girls who were staying at their house.
According to him, Ramzan’s wife had responded in negative. According to State Times investigation, another person named Mohammad Abbas, a Jammu-based broker, is the kingpin and the one responsible for allegedly suppling Rohingya girls to Kashmir.
Upon further investigating the matter, State Times found the following numbers used by the brokers:
Mohammad Ramzan 9682352868
Mohammad Abbas 6006655160
Pertinently, political parties like IkkJutt Jammu organised a signature campaign against ‘the illegal settlements of Bangladeshis, Rohingyas, and land grabbers/Land Jihad in Jammu’.
The party says it is concerned about “this serious threat to the people of Jammu being surrounded by anti-national and anti-social elements supported by the successive state government”. The party says despite the Supreme Court order on April 8, 2021, to deport them from Indian territory to their native country the government has not done anything. Most of the Rohingyas are residing at Bathindi and Channi areas in Jammu division.