Panel to bring back NRI spouses who faked marriage to Indians
FollowAfter witnessing frequent cases of NRIs cheating resident Indians with fraudulent marriages, a parliamentary panel has been set up to recommend measures to bring these NRIs back to India so that they can be tried under Indian laws.
The committee has decided to install a special cell in the external ministry which will be responsible for looking into complaints and international treaties to get these culprits back to India. The panel has also insisted on including the social security number of the NRIs in their marriage certificates.
According to a report in the Indian Express, activists have classified frauds into three broad categories. One in which an NRI man marries a resident Indian for dowry and goes abroad and never returns. There are also cases where the bride does go abroad with her NRI husband just to find out that he is already married and often becomes a victim of trafficking. And then there are cases where the bride marries an NRI only for a visa and calls off the marriage once she reaches abroad.
A petition by the NGO Lights Research Foundation says that “NRI grooms have made a mockery of Indian girls and the institution of marriage.” The panel’s chairperson, Bhubaneswar Kalita said “The Holiday Bride, a deserted woman, can’t aspire anything more than barren sympathy of people in our society…” says the petition. “A quick engagement, followed by a massive wedding, a huge dowry and a honeymoon, after which the NRI husband flies out of India while the wife waits for her visa… Over 20,000 brides have not seen their husbands after their honeymoon.”
Activist Sulagna Chattopadhyay, who heads the NGO Lights Research Foundation, said that around 25,000 cases of fraudulent marriages have been reported from Punjab. From past few months, families from Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Goa and Gujarat, too, have been victims.
