A close relative of a well-known New Delhi-based Kashmiri businessman has run into legal trouble after his lover from Germany moved a local court here seeking relief.
According to sources, the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Srinagar, witnessed one of the strangest cases in recent times that has baffled the police and the judiciary alike.
The story goes like this. A young man from Kashmir got closely involved with a man from Germany. The two soon became very close and developed homosexual relations. Over time the two got together, and the German gave numerous gifts to his Kashmiri lover running into lakhs of rupees.
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Such was the level of intimacy between the gay couple that the German wanted to marry the boy from Kashmir legally. Perhaps informed that homosexuality was still a crime in India, the German considered other options.
For a life with his Kashmiri boyfriend, the German decided to go in for a sex change operation. A sex change operation is an extremely costly affair. In the US, it costs about $25,000; in the UK about £8,000-£12,000; in Thailand the equivalent of around £3,000-£4,000. In Indian rupees sex change could cost anything up to Rs 10 lakh. The German claims he spent around Rs 30 lakh on surgery.
Despite the costs and the risks, the German reportedly went in for an operation. The operation was apparently successful and he came out of the operation theatre as a woman.
Thinking that now he (she) could marry her long time boyfriend, the German man-turned-woman came to Kashmir, only to get the shock of her life when her boyfriend refused to marry her.
Shocked and numbed, the German has decided to fight back. She hired a lawyer in Srinagar. In a petition filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, the German has reportedly accused the Kashmiri boy of fraud, cheating and rape.
But the counsel for the Kashmiri boy argued the basic petition was flawed as the sexuality of the German is not clear.
“I told the judge that it was a case of two *** les. If it is front **le then the case falls under section 376 of the IPC and if it is the back **le then section 377 of the IPC would apply. I told the judge to decide on which lines I should base my arguments on,” said advocate Bilal Ahmed.
He added that since the two were having a live-in relationship, charges of rape do not apply and that the German should file a civil suit instead.
According to sources, the police too are confused on filing the case report. ”Considering that the German was a man and now is a woman, we will wait for the observations of the court”, a police official said.
