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Ludhiana, Punjab: Their prime is slipping away and they are forced to make rounds of courts but the law fails to give them any immediate relief. This is the plight of abandoned NRI brides awaiting justice. Most of them are fighting their battles alone. Narrating their tragic tales at the Lok Bhalai Party’s office here today, abandoned NRI brides recollected how they had dreamt of a happy married life abroad but, unfortunately, now their dreams as well as lives lie shattered.
Talking to The Tribune, a couple of woman said even though they had been abandoned by their husbands, the law was unable to help them. Ruing the day she had planned to marry an NRI from Canada, 28-year-old Varinder Kaur from Patiala said she had been struggling to fend for herself for the last four years.
‘‘I feel dejected. I had thought I would live happily with my husband but that was not to be. He went back to Canada never to come back. I was told that I could marry someone else as I would not be able to afford Rs 15 lakh,’’ she said sobbing.
Another bride from Moga, Neelam Sharma, said despite having spent Rs 25 lakh on her marriage to Sandeep Sharma of Canada, all she got in return were tears and dejection.
‘‘I got married in 2006 and lived with my husband for a month till he returned to Canada. He came back last month and married yet another girl from Raikot. Despite complaints, the police has expressed its helplessness and I am left to pick up the shreds of my life again,” said Neelam.
Gurmeet Kaur from Moga, whose father sold off his four acres to arrange for her wedding and is now working as a farm labourer, is also bitter today. ‘‘I wish I had not married that cheat. He ruined my life. He should at least get punished for what he did to me,” she said.
While taking up their cases, LBP supremo Balwant Singh Ramoowalia demanded that before registering NRI marriages, the administration should demand an undertaking from the groom, disclosing his social security number and marital status. He should also give an undertaking that he would apply for the bride’s papers within 15 days after going back. Besides, Ramoowalia demanded a ban on marriage bureaus.
This NRI Bride thing had to stop somewhere, but it can only be possible if Indian Government takes any steps. Canada benefits lot from the Indian economy and since India is the next big exporter of goods to Canada then India can talk with Canada about a program where Indo Canadian boys n girls when they go to india to looking for a partner they must submit their licence and Social insurance number so they cannot cheat and hide in Canada
Sorry to Hear what you had to go through. The day British left India,the Corruption took over that Country by storm. India its a Great Prophets like Guru Nanak Jee was born on that land but the People are destroying this land of where King of Kings once lived by their evil practices. What Shaheed Bhagat Singh feared that He doesnt want the power goes from British Governors to Rich Evil Corrupted people of India. and that is exactly what happened. If they believe and do look upto Gandhi as their Father then why the have army in India. They must practice non-voilence what he try to teach people not to fight if anyone try to slap you let them. Gandhi I hate to say that in face tried to make indians coward not to raise their voice to oppression, social injustices committed by British Government at the time. Bhagat Singh and his comrades on the other hand tried to fan that fire to fight for your right they showed the path how to die for the country you love. Its not Gandhi who got us FREEDOM its Bhagat Singh and then ShaheeD Udham Singh who really struck fear when he assissnated came to punish General O’dyer in London England. Its Sad even with the sacrifices of such son’s of Indian motherlands the Country is still suffering at the hands of these Evildoers corrupted piece of shits. I would like to salute the Army of India who are the only Honest people that would not sell out or are corrupted like the inside of India. If it wasnt for this honest bravest Soldiers of India, that Country would have been part of pakistan long long ago. Truth Hurts but i always wanted to say what i think of India. The people in power are destroying this Country front left right and center everyday, and this can only stop if an ordinary indian wakes up that day will come but God knows when!
Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa
Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh
I have the deepest heart felt regard for these women who were left alone by their dead beat husbands. I met many such women when I was looking for a wife in Amritsar. The women had divorced because their husbands left them. My wife was also a victim of this experience. The women are always blamed if they divorce eventhough the husbands leave them. I have enclosed my story below which talks somewhat about this problem:
Local Sikh’s tale of escape from India justice
By Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican
11/7/2009
Guru Sant Singh Khalsa returned to New Mexico last week, more than seven months after he jumped bail in India, where he says he is wanted as a fugitive from fraud charges.
“India is just bizarre, and the police control everything,” the 52-year-old said in an interview Friday at a Santa Fe motel room, where he had a .38-caliber revolver sitting on a nearby dresser. “I realize now that there were other things going on there. They might try to list me as an international terrorist.”
California-born Clark Harris converted from Christianity to Sikhism 30 years ago and was given his Sikh name by the late Yogi Bhajan, whose ashram near Española drew thousands of young converts such as Singh Khalsa in the 1970s.
Singh Khalsa’s tale began two years ago, when he traveled to Amritsar, capital of the Indian Sikh state of Punjab. Singh Khalsa, who worked as a real-estate agent, said he wanted to have inexpensive dental work done there and, because he had recently divorced, he looked into finding a traditional Sikh bride through a marriage bureau.
On Jan. 12, 2008, he said, he and the marriage broker were confronted by the police and an Indian television reporter posing as a husband-seeker and accused of conspiring to defraud women. Singh Khalsa said he had paid the broker and didn’t realize the broker was double-charging the women.
Singh Khalsa said that after two weeks in jail he was released on bond and allowed to travel within India and to take jobs in ashrams catering to spiritual tourists, but was banned from leaving the country.
At first, he was determined to clear his name, he said, but after spending thousands of rupees on lawyers, fees and bribes, and attending a dozen court hearings, Singh Khalsa realized the legal ordeal could continue for years. He said he began to plot his escape when he learned he was being investigated as a spy for the Khalistan or Sikh-separatist movement.
“They certainly didn’t want to clear me because they’d lose complete face over that, so they just let things go on and on,” he said. “I realized they were never going to give me any kind of fair trial over there. Not only do they linger these things on, but they’ll bring whatever witnesses they want. They make up witnesses. It’s just a complete thing for their aggrandizement.”
Singh Khalsa said U.S. Embassy staff in New Delhi tacitly abetted his escape by issuing him a replacement passport, even though they knew his original had been confiscated by the courts. In April of this year, he took a train to the Sonali border crossing into Nepal and walked across.
“When I got to the border — they have their little customs and immigration booths right by the border — this one Indian immigration guy walked right in front of me,” he said. “I thought, ‘Oh, man, I’m going to get nailed.’ But he didn’t say anything. I looked Indian enough with a beard and everything. Some Kashmir Sikhs are pretty white.”
An Indian friend later brought his luggage with his replacement passport into Nepal. But he still lacked an entrance or exit visa from India, as well as an entrance visa for Nepal. That took about $1,000 more in bribes to both Indian and Nepalese immigration officials, weeks of delicate negotiations and finally $200 worth of “whores and booze” for a final party for the immigration agents, he said.
On April 14, he boarded a commercial airliner in Katmandu bound for Qatar and, from there, to Washington, D.C. “When the U.S. customs agent said, ‘Welcome back to the United States,’ I said, ‘You don’t know how much that means to me.’ ”
Singh Khalsa said when he returned to Sombrillo to take care of business, he felt that he was persona non grata among the 3HO (healthy, happy, holy) community of American Sikh converts. He said one local leader told him, “We would have rather you just stayed there.”
“To tell you the truth, I have been kind of a rebel,” he said. “I have sued people in the community. I even almost sued Yogi Bhajan over some business deals. So when I was arrested over there, the feedback I got was they all thought I was guilty of this heinous crime, so they didn’t want to have anything to do with it.”
While back in New Mexico this summer, he met a traditional Sikh woman, a medical doctor from India living in London, over the Internet and flew to England to meet her. On July 10, they married in a Sikh ceremony in Chicago, where she has relatives. He is now trying to obtain a green card for her so they can resettle in California, where he hopes to open a spiritual-oriented medical clinic.
He declined to identify his new wife because, he said, her first two husbands had left her after taking her dowry, and public knowledge of that would shame her. “Divorce is a big thing in India,” he said. “It’s all about the family and … they’ll hold it against them forever. It’s really shameful. It’s always the woman’s fault if there’s divorce.”
Singh Khalsa told his story while sitting at a table in a cheap motel on Cerrillos Road on Friday evening before heading west to visit his parents. He said his father helped him cover the $30,000 he spent during his two-year ordeal.
He said that although he is not worried about any official attempt to extradite him, he thinks there is a possibility that the Indian government or someone linked to it might try to sabotage him in the United States or even kidnap him and return him to India. He carries the revolver and said he is careful to keep his whereabouts confidential.
“I think probably I broke some U.S. laws by bribing these officials (via) the Foreign Corruption Practices Act, but I can’t possibly see the State Department trying to prosecute me for that,” he said. “No jury is going to convict me for getting out of there.”
Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.