New trouble for newlyweds Shoaib and Sania

Hyderabad:

Honeymoon bliss may evade Mr and Mrs Malik for just a little longer.

Shoaib Malik has been accused in a Hyderabad court of insulting Islam by offering contradicting versions of whether he was indeed married to Ayesha Siddiqui before he wed tennis star Sania Mirza.

If the petition is accepted as valid, a non-bailable police case could follow (for insulting a religion) and that means the celebrity couple may find it hard to depart to Pakistan for a planned wedding reception.

Mirza made a surprise announcement in March that she was going to marry Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. Nobody was more surprised, apparently, than another young woman from Hyderabad, Ayesha Siddiqui. Just as Malik arrived at Mirza's house for the pre-wedding festivities, Siddiqui went national with the revelation that Malik had married her on the phone a few years ago.

She acknowledged it had not been the happiest of couplings. Allegedly, Malik was embarrassed by her size, and suggested that she avoid introducing herself to anyone as his wife.

Malik himself seemed unsure of his marital status. After vehemently denying his phone nikaah, he then went through with a quickie divorce organized by community elders in Hyderabad.

In an interview on NDTV after their wedding, the Maliks said the controversy had brought them closer together. "It feels like we won the World Cup before the marriage," is how Shoaib described it.