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Canadian groom wants to shame his runaway bride
A Canadian businessman has lodged police reports in India claiming the woman he married used him to get a visa to come to Canada and join her lover.
By Mata Press Service
A Canadian businessman has lodged police reports in India claiming the woman he married used him to get a visa to come to Canada and join her lover.
In an unusual twist to the phenomenon of Punjab‘s abandoned brides, Satpaul (Steve) Dhaliwal told Indian media that his wife Rukhwant Kaur Toor used him "as a step to land in Canada."
"I am a Canadian citizen and sponsored her. She went to Canada only to be united with her lover, not with her husband. But I will not divorce her. I want her to come to her native village and seek a divorce here, so that everyone here comes to know how she has treated me," he was quoted as saying in Indian media.
The Asian Pacific Post and more recently, The Province newspaper in Vancouver have highlighted the plight of Punjab‘s abandoned brides. (See "Where have our husbands gone?" Oct 21, 2004)
The phenomenon–some have likened to organized crime–involves NRIs or non-resident Indians who return to their homeland to get married. In most cases dowries are involved and the women and their families are promised new lives in Canada and the U.S.
Official studies in India say that some 30,000 women in India have been left behind by their overseas-based husbands, referred to as Non-Resident Indians.
There have also been sporadic cases of women duping men in Punjab like the case involving Dhaliwal from Surrey.
Dhaliwal, a Canadian citizen, alleged that he married Rukhwant Kaur Toor in India in March 2003. After five days of marriage, he returned to Canada and began the sponsorship process.
Dhaliwal said that 15 months later, Rukhwant telephoned him, telling him that she had arrived in Surrey, Canada.
"A few months ago, I received a request for divorce from Rukhwant, who lives with her boyfriend either in Brampton or Toronto."
Dhaliwal alleged that Rukhwant cheated him claiming: "Rukhwant has taken away all the jewellery, her own as well as the ornaments and I gave her, the clothes, and the registry of my ancestral home which is in Sangrur district.
"I had relationships with other women in Canada before I married Rukhwant, but my mother wanted me to marry an Indian girl," he adds.
Dhaliwal said he has lodged a complaint with Jagraon police against his bride and her family, accusing them of cheating him.
Supt. Jarnail Singh Dhaliwal told Indian media: "The case is clear that the girl has duped this man."
It could not be immediately determined if Dhaliwal had lodged a report on his wife with Immigration Canada.
In October 2004, Immigration Canada took an Indian bride to court in Edmonton after she told her new husband she married him for his Canadian citizenship.
Karmjeet Jaswal, an elementary school teacher, was sentenced to four months in jail in Edmonton for communicating false information, in what is believed to be Canada‘s first successful prosecution of a marriage of convenience.
The court was told that in 2001, Satnam (Sam) Parmar, a 38-year-old drugstore supervisor, went to India to visit relatives. Family members there arranged for him to meet Karmjeet Jaswal.
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