KOLKATA, July 27: A Muslim jury forced a beggar and a widow to get married and paraded them in the streets of an eastern Indian village after suspecting they were having an affair, residents said on Saturday.

Sheik and mother of three Ezina were summoned before the jury to explain their relationship. “Muslim laws do not permit anyone to have such relations,” Abdul Mondal, chief of the jury in Naoda village, told AFP by telephone.

Anal Abedin, a resident of the village, which is about 225 kilometres north of Kolkata, said Sheik, 60, and Ezina, 35, had started begging together six years ago when the woman’s husband Azizul died.

“Sheik and Ezina used to travel together and beg on railway platforms and at marketplaces, singing Hindi film songs. They used to share their earnings,” he said.

The jury on Wednesday ordered the couple to marry in the presence of relatives. After the impromptu ceremony, the couple were paraded around the village streets for the evening, villagers said.

The tribunal also ordered Sheik to pay 4,000 rupees and Ezina 2,300 rupees.

The jury order made Sheik a reluctant bigamist. His first wife, Khaizan Bibi, protested the sentence, saying her husband was never in an affair with his fellow beggar.—AFP