Hindis bypass bigamy laws by converting to Islam...

This is what happens when you have different rules for different religions...

Most people famously proclaim that love is their religion, but there are some who use religion for love. Perhaps one such is Haryana's former deputy chief minister Chander Mohan, who became Chand Mohammed to marry his new love Anuradha Bali.

Mohan was with Seema Bishnoi, his wife of 13 years, when he met and fell in love with Bali. The Hindu Marriage Act 1955 does not allow a man to take a second wife so Mohan converted to Islam. So did Bali. Both dropped their Hindu names and assumed Muslim ones.

She became Fiza Parveen. And thus began a salacious soap opera played out before the media - Mohan abandons Fiza, who attempts suicide. She accuses him of playing with her sentiments and using religion to make a mockery of her love. He returns to Bishnoi, then dramatically goes back to Fiza. Was religion used and abused to commit adultery?

It is not the first time a high-profile Hindu couple has converted to Islam to 'marry' even though the first wife is alive. More than two decades ago, film stars Dharmendra and Hema Malini married secretly. Women activists protested against the "illegal" marriage. Dharmendra, they pointed out, was already married and had teenaged children. But in order to give legitimacy to his union with Hema Malini, the couple had converted to Islam.

Advocate and activist Neelofar Akhtar says that such conversions and marriages are made worse because they both are a "sham". She points out that "there are no strict laws to register a conversion (so) people are misusing the religion to have more than one wife. In all Muslim countries, there are very stringent rules if a man wants to take a second wife". But in India "it is done this easily. There is need for a regulatory body to monitor such misuse."