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A woman who posed as a man and seduced women via Facebook has been arrested in India for allegedly abusing her second wife.
- Both wives were from the same town in northern India
- Police said Sen had the numbers of more than 200 women in her phones
- They found luxury items including wine and pedigree dogs in Sen's home
Police and the second wife only found out the "husband" was a woman after the arrest.
Sweety Sen, 25, dressed as a man and cut her hair short before setting up a Facebook profile under the male name "Krishna".
Ms Sen quickly found a woman willing to meet and get married.
"We got married in 2014, she used to behave like a man, used to drink, smoke and also abuse," her first wife told a local news agency.
"She used to threaten to kill me after she married another woman."
The first wife told police Ms Sen gained more than $16,000 in dowry money from her family, but continued to beat her and ask for more.
Ms Sen married a second woman in 2016, renting rooms for both wives.
Police say Ms Sen developed a taste for the finer things in life after accruing dowry payments from her new wives.
They found luxury items including wine, expensive furniture and pedigree dogs in her home, as well as five smartphones.
Both women she married were from the same town in northern India.
The second wife found out her husband was actually a woman, but Ms Sen paid her to stay silent.
Police say Ms Sen never allowed the women to see her body, and used sex toys to maintain the illusion she was a man.
The first wife eventually went to police to accuse her husband of beating her up and demanding more dowry money.
Police say Ms Sen had the numbers of more than 200 women in her phones, and was actively conversing with women across the country on a range of social media platforms.
The practice of dowry — common in India and among Indian communities overseas — involves a bride's family giving money or goods to a husband after they marry.
"Dowry abuse" is a growing problem, where the husband or his family demand an increasing amount of payments or goods be proffered as a new marriage continues.
Police told a local news agency the alleged offender's gender came as a surprise.
"We had no clue that Sen was a woman. During questioning, Sen said she was a woman," police officer B. L. Vishwakarma said.
Police said they were now unsure whether Ms Sen could be charged with dowry abuse or domestic violence, saying that because she was not really a man, the marriages were not legal.
The story has parallels with a famous early 20th century case from Australia, where a Sydney woman posed for two decades as a man.
Eugenia Falleni married twice, and was eventually charged with murdering her first wife.
Topics: marriage, community-and-society, law-crime-and-justice, social-media, relationships, india
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