The State of Punjab, world infamous for its abandoned brides, is seeing a role reversal where foreign-based Indian women, including several from Canada, are being accused of abandoning their husbands.
IG Gurpreet Deo, who heads the Non Resident Indian wing of Punjab police, said in most cases the girls were from Canada, United States and England. The data reveals most duped youths were from the Moga-Jagraon belt with some cases being reported from Bathinda and Jalandhar too.
A large segment of Canada’s South Asian community hails from this region.
One of the cases highlighted by the Tribune India newspaper involved Surjit Singh (name changed).
According to the paper, Surjit was on cloud nine when he received a marriage proposal from an Indian-Canadian girl in 2009.
Like millions of Punjabi youths, the Raikot resident, too, aspired to go abroad. When the girl’s family asked for Rs 25 lakh (about C$45,000) for taking him abroad, Surjit readily agreed.
In 2011, he paid abut C$18,000 more to his in-laws for processing his Canadian visa papers. Five years after his wedding, Surjit is still in India. His NRI wife never took him along. Worse, Surjit hasn’t heard from her in the last three years.
Dumped and duped, Surjit’s woes haven’t ended even after making umpteen visits to police stations. He can’t remarry as an ex-parte divorce is not acceptable in India. He has no source of income as he had sold his land to arrange money for going abroad.
While tales of NRI youths dumping their brides are familiar in Punjab, Surjit’s case adds a fresh twist to this sordid saga, The Tribune commented.
In a role reversal, a significant number of girls, mostly NRIs, are “abandoning their husbands” after taking money from the groom’s family. The NRI wing of the Punjab Police, with its headquarters at Mohali, and other police stations across the state have received 40 such complaints this year.
“Most complaints of abandoned husbands relate to contract marriages (where money is given as a fee for going abroad). The police are contacted when all communication between the two sides ends. In the case of Surjit, the man waited for several years before approaching the police,” IG Deo said.
Deo said the actual number of ‘abandoned husbands’ would be much more. “We have noticed that men feel more social embarrassment after being abandoned and are hesitant to approach us,” she said.
While in the case of abandoned brides, the groom’s family usually accuses the girl of not being of good character and bringing insufficient dowry, the women have abandoned men on grounds of impotency and incompatibility.
There have been also cases where Indian girls have abandoned their NRI husbands after marriage. An NRI from Canada, Amrik Singh (name changed) has filed a complaint a Jalandhar girl, who along with her brother and parents, has been declared a proclaimed offender.
The police investigation reveals the girl wanted to migrate abroad. Her parents had migrated, but the girl’s papers were rejected. She married Amrik and after getting the Canadian Permanent Resident Certificate, she went to meet her parents and never returned.
She later said Amrik was impotent even though they had lived together for a year. A medical examination revealed that the youth had no such problem. Later, the girl accused her husband and in-laws of harassing her for dowry.
Deo said the legal recourse for abandoned grooms is the same that is available for dumped brides, “After a case of cheating is established and an First Information Report is lodged, the accused are declared proclaimed offenders. If they don’t join investigation, their properties are attached,” said Deo.
The South Asian Post and its sister papers were among the first newspapers in Canada to highlight and investigate the phenomena of India’s abandoned brides about eight years ago.
India’s abandoned brides are victims of cultural fraud which is perpetuated by greed and fuelled by a manic desire to go overseas. Lured by the promise of large dowries, prospective grooms frequently breeze in every year from the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe marry, then rush back home with the spoils, leaving behind what have become known as “abandoned brides”. Today, across India, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 young women live to regret marriages that have left them alone, miserable and consumed with shame.
A 2007 report by the Punjab University stated that about 25,000 abandoned women in Punjab alone faced an uphill battle against a legal system, which provides little hope of justice.
It suggested the Indian government should stamp the marital status of NRIs in their passports and bring in new laws to protect vulnerable women.
With thousands of brides being abandoned every year, usually by husbands living overseas, India’s Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs also recommends that families hire private detectives to vet suitors and avoid being conned into giving away dowries, which are officially outlawed but are still common among the wealthy.
The ministry estimates that tens of thousands of brides are lied to or misled each year.
While arranged marriages between Indo-Canadians and Indian nationals have a time-honoured and successful history, police in the state of Punjab, from which 75 per cent of B.C.’s Indo-Canadian population originates, say half of these marriages today are frauds.