The Strange Tale of Sweety Sen Alias Krishna Sen’s Two Marriages

You know what they say – fact is stranger than fiction? Well, the story of Sweety Sen, who posed as a man, married twice, made dowry demands and got arrested; is one factual story that really is stranger than any story that a novel writer or even Bollywood would dream of. So peculiar is the story that one wonders if it happens only in India?

Dressed as a man for four years

Sweety Sen is from Dhampur, Bijnore in Uttar Pradesh. Sources say that she was always something of a tomboy while growing up. In 2013, she also started posing as a man and took the name Krishna for her new male persona. She kept her hair short, rode a motorcycle, used abusive language and smoked. Sweety started a Facebook account in the name of Krishna Sen and started to lure women.

Sen ‘met’ a 22-year-old Kamini online in 2014; convincing her that she was a man. The woman has a double master’s degree. After that, Sen and her family travelled to Kathgodam near Nainital to meet the family of the girl and later the two got married. After the marriage, the couple lived in a rented house in Haldwani. According to police sources, Sweety used sex toys to consummate the marriage and create the illusion of being a man.

Soon after the marriage, Sweety/Krishna started to beat 'his' wife Kamini and make dowry demands. Sweety/Krishna managed to extract Rs 8.5 lakhs from the family of the bride saying that she needed money for the CFL factory she had in Hardwar.

Marriage no. 2

In 2016, Sweety/Krishna married another woman, this time 20-year-old Nisha from Kaladhungi in Nainital. This second wife was a guest at the first wedding of Sweety/Krishna. The couple then moved to Hardwar. Sweety/Krishna rented a room in Haldwani’s Tikoniya area and kept both ‘wives’ there. Nisha from Kaladhungi discovered that her ‘husband’ was actually a woman, but was induced to keep silent with the promise of money.

The whole bizarre story came to light when Wife No 1 filed a police complaint against her ‘husband’ for domestic abuse and for demanding dowry. Sweety/Krishna went missing but was traced recently by the Kathgodam police and arrested. When Sweety/Krishna was arrested, the police continued to think that this was a man until she told the authorities that she was a woman and until medical examination confirmed that she was indeed a woman biologically.

The charges against her are fairly convoluted too. She was earlier arrested for dowry harassment but since none of the ceremonies with women qualifies as a marriage, the charges are now amended to forgery. Since the family of Sweety/Krishna were clearly complicit in the whole matter – they were present at both ‘weddings’ and continued to visit Sweety/Krishna later – the police is now on the lookout for them as accessories to the crime.

Could Sweety/Krishna have been the victim of the social taboos that still surround homosexuality in India? Could she be a would-be transsexual; a woman who believed she was trapped in the body of a woman? Could this just be a story of some very twisted, deviant mind that manipulated, fooled and abused two women and their families? Even if Sweety/Krishna was a victim of social taboos and familial expectations there is certainly no excuse for dowry demands, domestic abuse and what amounts to bigamy. Like they say, fact really is stranger than fiction.

Do you have something interesting you would like to share? Write to us at [email protected]