Krishna Sen, a woman from India’s Uttar Pradesh state who posed as a man for over 4 years, was recently arrested for marrying two women and harassing them for dowry.

Krishna had always been a bit of a tomboy, but in 2013 she went a step further, adopting a male persona on social media and approaching women online in hopes of starting a romantic relationship with them. She started wearing men’s clothes, cutting her hair short and even changed her name to Sweety Sen. Over the course of three years, the disguised woman managed to convince two women to marry her, and then started pressuring them and their families for dowry.

Photo: India.com

Sen’s first victim was Kamini, a woman from the city of Haldwani, who she had met online in 2014. She presented herself as the son of a businessman from Aligarh and eventually traveled to the state of Uttarakhand to meet the woman. They got married later that year, and Kamini recently told police that her “husband” started behaving like an abusive man, drinking, smoking and physically abusing her for dowry.

“Sen had convinced her that she was a man. The two married the same year and started living in a rented house in Nainital district’s Haldwani town, but Sen soon started assaulting the woman for dowry,” police officer Janmejay Khanduri told India.com.

In 2016, Sweety Sen took a second wife, a woman called Nisha, from Kaladhungi town in the state of Uttarakhand. Unlike Kamini, she soon realized that her husband was actually a woman, but Sweety convinced her to keep silent, by offering her money. She apparently accepted and the charade went on as before until Sweety’s first wife finally got sick of the beatings and threats for dowry and went to the police.

Photo: Hindustan Times

Sweety Sen was recently arrested for abusing Kamini, and eventually confessed that he wasn’t really a man. He told police that he never allowed his wives to touch him during the day, and only consummated their marriage at night, in total darkness, using sex toys she had bought online. A medical examination confirmed that Sweety Sen was a woman.

“We were married for two years, I found the truth about her later. I did not register a complaint. I don’t want to live with her now,” Nisha told the ANI News Agency.

Krishna Sen was charged with impersonation, fraud and forgery and sent to Haldwani jail. However, she doesn’t face any domestic abuse charges as “technically she was not a husband therefore it cannot be treated as marriage”.