R U There for them ....

[JOYce]

Hello All,

Few months back I read this story in Tribune and was very upset to see what some of these NRI people will do !!!!!!!!!

I suggest that we start a discussion on forum to track these Guys and make them pay for their sins by asking for Alimony and child support and bring these issues to resolution. Any takers who can help. We can ask these girls to come forward and list their stories on our web site and also post the pictures of these NRI guys so that they can not hurt any one else. I hope U will be there for all such needy Gals...

VKK VKF

Big city .. bright lights! A dream of a life in a foreign land. All has gone sour for Virpal Kaur, a resident of Rampura Phul village in Bathinda district, as her NRI husband from USA refuses to accept her as his wife and is seeking a divorce just a year and a half after their marriage.

Little did Virpal Kaur, (25) who dreamt of a happy married life in the USA and is 8-months pregnant now, know what lay in store for her. A US immigrant, she has nowhere to go for her husband has gone back leaving all her travel documents in the possession of his brother-in-law, Jaswant Singh, who happens to be a jail warden of the Central jail in Bathinda. Today, she is running from pillar to post to get those documents so that she can give birth to her child in the USA next month.

Married to Napinder Singh of Pitho village last year, Virpal joined him in Virginia (USA) six months after her marriage. But, happiness was shortlived as when she was five-months pregnant, her husband brought her to India (Punjab) in March this year on the pretext of meeting his sister, who was not well. Breaking down every now and then while narrating her story, Virpal said her husband started showing his true colours when her father Amarjit Singh refused to give him the money , which they had got on her mother’s retirement as a government school teacher this year.

He flew back to the USA without telling her and leaving all her travel documents — green card, passport and original certificates — with Mr Jaswant Singh. Even after promising to return her those papers vide a panchayatnamah, Mr Jaswant Singh refuses to part with them and would do so only if she signed the divorce papers.

With mixed feelings of joy and sorrow, Virpal is apprehensive of her child’s future. She has appealed to the Minister for Prisons and other authorities concerned to help her get those papers so that she could fly back to her husband in the USA before the child’s birth and thereby get whatever is legally due to them.

Be it Veerpal Kaur, Ravinder Kaur, Joginder Kaur, Jagir Kaur, Tirath Kaur — their tales of woe have a common streak of betrayal. Few of these women, including young married girls who have been deserted by their greedy and fraudulent NRI grooms, were produced before mediapersons by Mr B.S. Ramoowalia, president of the Lok Bhalai Party, here today. Mr Ramoowalia has started a major campaign to support such distressed women married to NRI men.

Twenty years down-the-lane, Ravinder Kaur of Jagraon, who got married to Kulwant Singh in India in 1983, is a helpless woman as she neither has her husband nor her children. Talking to TNS she said he had left for Canada for better job prospects in 1986 and had promised to take her soon after. Though he kept visiting and living a normal life with us whenever he was in India, but to her dismay she learnt in 1993 that he had already given her an ex-party divorce in Canada in 1988. In 1996, he took away both the sons and wanted to get her killed. But by God’s grace she was saved. He had been repeatedly asking her to arrange for money and a car as dowry.

A JBT teacher in Government Primary School, Bhumipura Kalan (Jagraon), she is desperate to get back to her siblings, from whom she was separated when they were just 7 and 9 years old. “He does not even let them speak to me on the telephone and makes life hell for them if I give them a call from here’’ Such is the level of injustice that even the ration card of her in-laws family finds mention of the girl whom he married in Toronto and not her name. While she has been pleading her case, but has got no relief so far since her in-laws are all out to get the same cancelled allegedly by bribing the police.

The glitter of gold in foreign land has also ruined the life of Jaspal Kaur, (23) a resident of Balerkhanpur (Kapurthala), who was married to Amarjit Singh Nijjer, an NRI from USA on January 7, 2002, but only to face divorce proceedings soon after. She is presently contesting a case filed by her husband in Virginia (USA) for mutual divorce but her problems are getting compounded due to the non-issuance of a visa by the embassy to enable her to attend the trial of the case.

Joginder Kaur of Rattowal village in Ludhiana district, who has a 26-year-old son, Satwant, continues to wait for justice. She got married to Paramjit Singh of Akbarpur Channa village near Ahmedgarh in 1976, but he moved to the USA in 1980. He continued to give us false hopes that he would take us, but got married there. Her brother-in-law, who continued to play spoilsport right from the beginning wanted her to move there with his two children and showed her a divorcee with two children in the court marriage performed in 2001. But sensing his game plan, she refused to admit them as her children when passport enquiries were made. Her problems kept growing and as he gets ready for his fifth marriage there, she has been able to get the passports of her in-laws confiscated by the police, as they were preparing to go there.

Both Jagir Kaur and her sister Tirath Kaur, hailing from Jhingran village of Nawanshahr district, continue to suffer pangs of isolation and desertion due to unreasonable dowry demands. Jagir, who was married in 1999 and has a three-year-old son Manwinder has been at the mercy of her in-laws. Even Tirath Kaur, who has a 12-year daughter is awaiting justice as she was made to forcibly sign on some false papers, which were divorce papers from the USA. She later got to know of the same from the police..

After highlighting the plight of these women at the hands of the NRI husbands, Mr Ramoowalia listed out certain suggestions for the necessary procedural changes. This includes making registration of FIR’s against guilty grooms/their parents/relations mandatory (within 90 days) followed by speedy investigation and filing of challans; compulsory registration of `istri dhan’ and marriage with NRI grooms, followed by authentication by the local panchayat and the police on the correctness of marriage. The police should resist any political pressure favouring guilty NRI grooms, their parents and erring police officials shirking responsibility towards the complainant bride and her parents and they should be made accountable for deterrent punishment.

The NRIs, without certified divorce papers from the previous wife should be stopped from re-marrying in India and the passports of NRIs should bear the picture of both husband and wife after marriage. The wife should also be made a partner to the NRI’s property outside India a week after the marriage is solemnised.