In the year 1996, Raj (name changed) travelled to Delhi airport with her husband and their two sons. She had waited years for this journey. Her husband had repeatedly promised to sponsor her. This time, she believed that the wait was finally over. Her dream of becoming one of the ‘NRI wives’ was materialising, at least for her.
When they reached the airport, her husband handed her a sealed envelope, claiming it contained her sponsorship papers. He asked her to wait while he went inside with their sons. She patiently waited for two hours. Eventually, when she opened the envelope at the entrance gate, there were no sponsorship papers inside. There were only blank papers. The flight on which she was supposed to accompany her husband had already departed. Her husband and two children were gone.
The airport drama was not the beginning of her story. She got married on 27th June 1983 at the age of 21. Her husband had come from Singapore. A relative brought the proposal and the marriage was fixed within a week. Her family did not enquire into the prospective groom because they were desperate to send their daughter abroad. The marriage was not registered. Around Rs 5 lakh was spent, and her parents sold land to meet the expenditure and demands associated with the marriage.
Raj’s husband stayed in India with her for two months and left for Singapore. He came back the next year and stayed for another three months, after which he shifted to Canada. Raj had two sons. For years, her husband kept promising her that he would take her with him. However, it never happened. Eventually, in November 2001, she filed an FIR against her husband after years of waiting and harassment.
Raj’s story belonged to another era, but it came to light in 2007 through a government-backed study that showed how deep-rooted the problem already was.
It has been over two decades since the story was published in the study, but things have not changed. Punjab is still talking about spouses who were promised a life abroad and were left behind. That is perhaps the more uncomfortable story.
The problem of abandoned spouses is not a new phenomenon for Punjab. The state and the central government are aware of the issue. Warnings have been issued multiple times. People have been warned about it. NGOs have been working to educate people about the problem. The Ministry of External Affairs even issued a checklist. Yet, families continue to stake marriages and lakhs of rupees on the promise of foreign settlement.
The National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development conducted ‘A Study on Desertion of Married Women by Non-Resident Indians in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh’ and published it in 2007. Researchers had initially sought 100 deserted women from each state, but many victims or their relatives were unwilling to disclose their cases. Ultimately, information was collected from 50 women in Punjab and 52 in Andhra Pradesh, along with detailed case studies.
The Punjab findings were revealing. Only 13 of the 50 women said their families had made an enquiry about the groom before marriage. In 37 cases, there had been no such enquiry. Among the marriages examined in Punjab, 60% had not been registered. Researchers cited ignorance, lack of time because the NRI husband was visiting briefly and, in some instances, questions around an existing marriage as factors behind non-registration.
Twenty-five of the 50 Punjab women had spent no more than a month with their husbands in India after marriage. Sixteen reported that their husbands stayed for less than 15 days and nine for between 16 days and one month. Another 14 reported stays of between one and three months. These were marriages in which, for many women, the shared matrimonial life in India was measured in days or weeks before the husband returned abroad.
Money was woven through many of these cases. The study recorded that the parents of all 50 Punjab respondents gave what it classified as dowry during marriage, including combinations of jewellery, household goods, property, vehicles, cash and other gifts. Forty Punjab respondents reported post-marriage harassment involving further demands. In some cases, additional cash was allegedly demanded on the pretext of arranging visas and tickets for the women.
The study also exposed the gap between lodging an FIR and actually obtaining a legal outcome. Of the 50 Punjab respondents, five had obtained divorces, while 21 had only succeeded in registering an FIR without further progress at the time the research was conducted. This was not the only institutional warning.
On 13th August 2007, Parliament’s Committee on Empowerment of Women presented its Twelfth Report with an unusually direct title: Plight of Indian Women Deserted by NRI Husbands. Parliament was therefore formally examining deserted NRI wives almost 19 years before the latest discussion around 32,000 abandoned women in Punjab. The government subsequently submitted an Action Taken Report on the committee’s recommendations in 2008.
Nor was public awareness ignored. The Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs held a national consultation on marriages to overseas Indians as early as February 2006. The consultation brought together different stakeholders specifically to help develop guidance for people contemplating such marriages.
The Ministry of External Affairs today maintains a detailed guidance booklet on marriages to overseas Indians. It is not written like a vague awareness slogan. It tells families to conduct proper background checks and understand the prospective spouse’s marital, financial, employment and immigration status before committing to the marriage.
Even recent awareness efforts have concentrated heavily on Punjab. During 2023-24, the National Commission for Women, in coordination with Panjab University, conducted 14 programmes in different districts of Punjab under the title NRI Marriages: Do’s and Don’ts: A Way Forward. So, Punjab was warned. The question is why the same gamble continues.
On 17th June 2026, Akashvani reported that NCW Chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar had said nearly 32,000 women had reportedly been abandoned by NRI husbands in Punjab over the years. During meetings with district administration and police officials, she described NRI marriage fraud as a growing challenge and called for faster investigations, better coordination and timely legal intervention.
In December 2018, Punjab-based activist Satwinder Kaur Satti was already telling The Tribune that around 32,000 women in Punjab had been deserted by NRI husbands. The claim came from the organisation formed by abandoned wives, rather than from a government enumeration cited in the report.
On 8th March 2019, Ab Nahi Social Welfare Society again claimed that there were at least 32,000 cases of women abandoned by NRI husbands across Punjab. At the time, the organisation itself complained that police and passport authorities lacked a comprehensive database of offenders and said establishing even the total number of FIRs was difficult.
The same figure appeared in another report in August 2018, although there it was claimed that 32,000 aggrieved women had FIRs registered across Punjab. That description is difficult to reconcile with later reporting and with annual Punjab Police case figures cited elsewhere, making the original basis of the number even more important to establish.
A 2019 report by The New Indian Express, for instance, quoted the Punjab Police NRI Wing as having registered 154 cases in 2017, 167 in 2018 and 103 until May 2019. Those are clearly not comparable with an assertion of 32,000 FIRs. They may measure different categories or periods, but that is precisely why the figure cannot be used without attribution and explanation.
The Union government’s own answer in Parliament adds another layer. On 27th March 2025, Rajya Sabha MP Sant Balbir Singh specifically asked whether the government had information about Indian women whose husbands married them, left them behind and settled abroad, particularly in Punjab. MEA replied that such data were maintained by state governments and Union Territory administrations. The Ministry did not maintain state-wise data on women abandoned in India. Separately, Indian Missions and Posts had received 1,617 complaints over the preceding five years from NRI women allegedly abandoned by spouses in foreign countries.
NCW’s own complaint statistics represent yet another category. During 2023-24, its NRI Cell received 522 new complaints nationally. Punjab accounted for 47 of them. These are complaints received by one institution in one financial year. They are neither the total number of NRI matrimonial disputes in Punjab nor an estimate of all deserted spouses.
This does not mean that 32,000 women were not affected. It simply means that before repeating the number as fact, somebody needs to establish what exactly was counted.
Were there 32,000 individual women? 32,000 complaints? 32,000 FIRs? A cumulative estimate compiled by NGOs? Cases identified across police, courts and passport offices? Does the number include women whose matters were subsequently resolved? And if approximately 32,000 was already the estimate in 2018 and 2019, why is approximately 32,000 still being cited in 2026?
These are not pedantic questions. Without the answers, it is difficult to know the actual scale of the problem Punjab claims to be solving
There is another uncomfortable distinction that tends to disappear when every failed NRI marriage is described as fraud. No law can force one unwilling adult to continue living with another adult merely because they once married. A spouse may leave. A marriage may collapse. A husband or wife may seek divorce. A person may decide not to continue with a plan to migrate together.
These events can cause enormous emotional and financial damage and may give rise to matrimonial claims. But on their own, they do not prove that the marriage was entered into with criminal intent.
However, criminal cheating requires something different. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed that, for the offence of cheating, dishonest intention must exist when the representation or inducement is made. A later failure to fulfil a promise cannot by itself prove that the original promise was fraudulent. The Court reiterated the ingredients of cheating in 2024 while relying, among other authorities, on Mariam Fasihuddin.
This distinction becomes especially important in Punjab’s migration-linked marriages. If a Canadian husband deliberately conceals that he already has a wife, lies about his immigration status and extracts money using those lies, that is very different from a genuine marriage that falls apart three years later.
Similarly, if an IELTS-qualified woman genuinely marries, goes to Canada, later sponsors her husband and the two then fall out, the failed marriage cannot logically prove that she always intended to cheat him. The law must distinguish between the two.
To understand why these disputes remain so potent, the story has to move beyond marriage and look at migration itself. Punjab Agricultural University researchers studied overseas migration using primary data from 9,492 households across 44 villages in all 22 districts of Punjab. The research covered migration between 1990 and September 2022. Canada accounted for 42% of the emigrants identified in the study, followed by Dubai at 16%, Australia at 10% and Italy at 6%. Around 74% of the emigration captured by the study had occurred since 2016.
PAU estimated that approximately 13.34% of rural households surveyed had at least one member who had migrated. Canada and Australia were particularly attractive destinations for younger migrants using the study route. Among migrants travelling on study visas, women constituted 65% and men 35%, with researchers specifically pointing to the ability to obtain the required IELTS band as one factor behind that gender pattern.
The financial findings are even more revealing. About 56% of migrant households had borrowed money to send family members abroad. PAU calculated average borrowing of approximately Rs 3.13 lakh among migrant households and estimated migration-related borrowing across Punjab at around Rs 14,342 crore. Around 19.38% of migrants had households that sold assets, including land, houses or plots, gold, cars or tractors, to fund migration.
PAU also listed loneliness, neglect of elderly family members, indebtedness, abandoned agriculture and sale of assets among the social costs associated with migration.
The numbers explain something that the phrase “Canada craze” otherwise trivialises. Foreign migration in Punjab can involve families borrowing money, selling assets and reorganising their economic lives around the possibility of leaving India. Once overseas migration becomes valuable enough for land to be sold for it, why would marriage remain untouched by the same calculation?
For years, the familiar formula was simple. An NRI man came home. A Punjab family saw a son-in-law already established abroad. The daughter married him. The expectation was that she would eventually join him.
The man’s foreign residency was not just a detail about where he happened to live. It could make him a far more attractive match.
The government study from 2007 repeatedly records this psychology. In Raj’s case, researchers wrote that the family never investigated the groom because it was focused on marrying her to an NRI and sending her abroad.
The same study recorded another Punjab case involving Poonam Rani, who married a Canadian passport holder in November 2003. According to the study, her husband was already married but had not disclosed this fact. When she insisted that their marriage be registered, he allegedly avoided registration and returned to Canada. The dispute eventually ended in a monetary settlement with the family.
That is not merely a marriage that went wrong. Concealing an existing spouse or deliberately fabricating material facts before marriage raises very different legal questions from simply deciding later that a relationship no longer works.
And yet the government study found that basic verification itself was frequently missing. Seventeen years later, the Law Commission of India was still discussing the same problem.
On 15th February 2024, the 22nd Law Commission submitted Report No 287, ‘Law on Matrimonial Issues Relating to Non-Resident Indians and Overseas Citizens of India’. The Commission described fraudulent NRI marriages involving false assurances, misrepresentation, abandonment, financial exploitation and cross-border legal complications as an issue requiring a more comprehensive legislative response.
The Commission recommended that a central law cover not only NRIs but Overseas Citizens of India as well. It wanted compulsory registration of marriages between NRIs or OCIs and Indian citizens, along with provisions dealing with divorce, maintenance, child custody, maintenance of children and service of summons, warrants and other judicial documents. It also proposed passport-related changes, including declaration of marital status and linking marriage-registration information with passports.
The legal recommendations matter. But these reports also point to another reality, that is, families cannot expect the state to compensate for every precaution they failed to take before the marriage.
A government can make registration mandatory. It can make serving summons easier. It can regulate passports. It can prosecute offences. It still cannot verify a prospective spouse on behalf of every family unless families themselves demand and check the information available to them.
MEA’s Marriages to Overseas Indians guidance booklet is perhaps the most practical government document on the issue. It urges families contemplating such marriages to verify crucial claims instead of relying on appearances, relatives, matrimonial intermediaries or the glamour attached to an overseas address.
The guidelines work on a very basic principle. If the man says he has Canadian permanent residency, verify the document. If he claims to work at a particular company, verify the employment. If he says he has never married, verify his marital status as far as reasonably possible.
If a prospective spouse claims that a certain immigration category will automatically allow the other spouse to move abroad, check the actual rule on the foreign government’s website.
If a family is about to transfer Rs 20 lakh or Rs 30 lakh for education or migration, retain documentary proof of where the money went and why. The point is not to blame somebody who is subsequently cheated. A victim does not lose legal protection merely because the family was careless. But recklessness and victimhood can coexist.
Someone can be deceived and still have ignored obvious warning signs. Punjab’s experience raises a blunt question: after decades of publicised cases, how many more families can reasonably say that an overseas address itself was sufficient verification?
Punjab’s study-visa economy eventually altered who held the migration advantage. The newer marriage formula could work in reverse. The woman had the IELTS score and the ability to obtain admission abroad. The man’s family had the money. They married. His family financed her tuition and other migration costs. She went abroad first. The expectation was that the husband would follow.
Indian Express documented this matrimonial market in Punjab, including advertisements specifically seeking women with qualifying IELTS scores while stating that the groom’s side would bear the expense of sending them overseas. The practice became popularly described as an “IELTS marriage”.
There is a brutal symmetry to the two models. In the older marriage market, a foreign-settled groom and a Punjab bride meant a possible route abroad for the woman.
In the study-visa model, an IELTS-qualified bride and money from the groom’s family mean a possible route abroad for the man. The immigration advantage changed hands. The willingness to build a marriage around it remained.
The NGO ‘Ab Nahi’ itself had begun encountering both. A media report from 2021 said founder Satwinder Kaur Satti had assisted around 700 women and was also helping around 40 husbands who alleged that they had been duped by their wives. Those were NGO figures, not state statistics, but they established that the reverse phenomenon was substantial enough to reach an organisation originally created around abandoned brides.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has already had to draw this distinction. In Rajveer Kaur and others v State of Punjab, decided on 25th March 2019, a cheating FIR had been registered after a matrimonial dispute involving an IELTS certificate and an expectation that the wife would go abroad and subsequently take her husband with her.
The High Court noted that Rajveer Kaur was not an NRI at the time of marriage, did not have a visa and had not represented that she already possessed one. The court held that having an expectation of going abroad, or even a promise that she would go abroad and take her husband with her, did not, on those facts, make out a cognisable offence. The FIR was quashed.
The judgment makes a much broader point. A person can promise, in complete good faith, that they will try to take a spouse abroad. The visa may be refused. Immigration rules may change. The relationship may collapse before sponsorship happens. The person may simply change their mind about the marriage. None of these possibilities automatically establishes that the original promise was criminally dishonest.
Another Punjab and Haryana High Court judgement makes the distinction even clearer. In Ranjodh Singh and another v State of Punjab and another, decided on 25th February 2025, Amanpreet Kaur married Kamalpreet Singh in December 2019 and went to Canada on a student visa in August 2020. She later sent sponsorship for her husband, who travelled to Canada on a work visa in April 2022. Their relationship subsequently deteriorated and criminal allegations followed, including an allegation that the woman’s side had intended from the outset to obtain money under false pretences.
The fact that Amanpreet had actually sponsored her husband and he had reached Canada was central to the legal assessment. It seriously undermined an allegation that she had entered the marriage with a pre-planned intention never to fulfil the migration arrangement. The fact that their relationship later collapsed could not, by itself, prove that she had intended to cheat him from the beginning.
That principle protects both sexes. If an NRI husband genuinely marries a woman, begins sponsorship proceedings and the marriage later collapses, the wife cannot establish criminal fraud merely by pointing to the failed migration.
If an IELTS-qualified wife genuinely enters the marriage, tries to take her husband abroad and the relationship subsequently fails, his family’s expenditure cannot by itself prove that she was a cheat from the wedding day.
But evidence of a pre-existing plan to deceive changes everything. When does a matrimonial dispute become criminal? The answer depends on facts, not on whether the complainant is a husband or a wife. If a person knowingly lies about already being married, that can raise one set of legal questions. If somebody fabricates permanent residency or produces forged immigration documents to secure a marriage or money, that raises another.
If a person deliberately induces another family to transfer large sums through representations they know to be false, cheating may become relevant. Where a woman alleges cruelty by her husband or his relatives, provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and other applicable laws may come into play depending on the facts. Dowry-related conduct, domestic violence, maintenance, divorce, child custody and recovery of property can involve different statutes and different legal proceedings.
One marriage can therefore produce several parallel cases. The important distinction is between seeking a remedy for a failed marriage and seeking criminal punishment. A criminal case requires evidence that the ingredients of the alleged offence were actually present.
The assumption at the centre of many IELTS marriages has become riskier for another reason. Canada changed the rules governing open work permits for spouses of international students with effect from 21st January 2025. Eligibility is now restricted mainly to spouses of students enrolled in master’s programmes lasting at least 16 months, doctoral programmes and specified professional or other eligible programmes. Simply marrying somebody studying in Canada does not guarantee an open work permit.
This has a simple implication for Punjab’s migration-marriage market. A family promise is not an immigration policy. Even two people acting entirely honestly cannot guarantee that Canada will issue a visa. A marriage certificate does not override Canadian law. An IELTS score does not guarantee permanent residency. A student permit does not automatically guarantee the other spouse admission. Any family paying lakhs of rupees on the assumption that the second migration will inevitably follow is investing money in an outcome that neither spouse actually controls.
Making the discussion gender-neutral does not require pretending that the documented scale is equal. The documentary record on abandoned wives is far more extensive. There is a dedicated 2007 parliamentary report on women deserted by NRI husbands. There is a Government of India field study focused on deserted wives. NCW’s NRI Cell was developed around women’s grievances. Government assistance schemes and years of public debate were built primarily around the problems faced by wives whose husbands were overseas.
The male cases are nevertheless real. They appear in police complaints, court judgements and NGO records. What Punjab currently lacks in the public domain is a comparable statewide dataset establishing how many husbands allege that they were financially deceived or abandoned after financing a wife’s foreign study.
That does not mean men and women are affected in equal numbers. It means the same migration-linked marriage bargain can now leave either a husband or a wife on the losing side.
Punjab has also created institutions specifically to deal with NRI-related problems. The state has a Department of NRI Affairs, an NRI and Women Wing within Punjab Police and grievance mechanisms for NRI-related matters. An official Punjab government document says the specialised police wing was established to deal with criminal cases involving NRIs and notes measures including compulsory marriage registration to protect against marriage-related fraud.
Punjab also enacted the Punjab Compulsory Registration of Marriages Act, 2012. The Act requires registration of marriages solemnised under laws governing the parties, irrespective of religion, caste, creed or nationality.
This also shows the limits of one frequently proposed solution. Marriage registration is important because it establishes that the marriage took place. But registration cannot tell the bride that her prospective husband lied about his Canadian job.
It cannot tell a groom’s family whether an IELTS-qualified bride will eventually secure the immigration status required to bring him abroad. It cannot predict whether either spouse will remain committed to the relationship. Registration can establish that a marriage took place. It cannot prevent bad judgement, deception or incompatibility.
Suppose a woman in Punjab alleges that her husband concealed an existing marriage, obtained money from her family through false representations and then returned overseas. Or suppose a man alleges that his family transferred large sums for his wife’s overseas education because she had entered the marriage with a deliberate plan to obtain the money and disappear abroad.
If the complaint discloses a criminal offence, Punjab Police can investigate. The difficulty is that the accused person, evidence, employment records, immigration documents, bank accounts or witnesses may be in another country.
MEA told Rajya Sabha in March 2025 that cases involving husbands leaving wives in India and settling abroad are dealt with by the respective state governments and UT administrations under existing law. Indian Missions and Posts can separately provide counselling, information about legal procedures and consular assistance. MEA also cited mechanisms including MADAD and CPGRAMS for distressed Indians.
But an Indian Mission is not a foreign branch of Punjab Police. A Canadian address has to be located. Judicial process may have to be served abroad. Evidence located overseas may have to be obtained through recognised legal channels. The foreign country’s own laws must be respected. And even successful service of a notice does not mean the person will board the next flight to India. A border does not extinguish Indian legal proceedings. It makes enforcing them harder.
Passport action is another area where what families expect and what the law actually permits can be very different. A wife may understandably ask why an overseas husband facing an FIR should continue holding a valid Indian passport. But the Passports Act provides statutory grounds and procedures for impounding or revoking a passport. A matrimonial complaint does not itself create an automatic cancellation mechanism.
A 2024 Punjab and Haryana High Court case illustrates this problem. In Priya v Union of India, the petitioner had lodged FIR dated 6th March 2024 at Police Station NRI, Gurdaspur, under Sections 420, 406, 498A and 120-B of the IPC against, among others, her husband, who was living in Australia. She subsequently challenged the renewal of his passport. At the time the High Court dealt with the petition, the police had not yet filed the final report after investigation.
The case shows why ‘FIR karao, passport cancel karao’ is not how the process works. An FIR has to be investigated, and any passport action must meet the requirements laid down in law. The authorities have enforcement powers, but those powers cannot replace evidence.
NRI matrimonial disputes can become more complicated when the overseas spouse obtains a divorce from a foreign court. The Supreme Court’s landmark judgement in Y Narasimha Rao v Y Venkata Lakshmi established that a foreign matrimonial decree is not automatically conclusive in India merely because a foreign court has issued it. Recognition depends on questions including jurisdiction, the matrimonial law applicable to the parties, the ground on which relief was granted and whether the other spouse voluntarily submitted to the foreign court’s jurisdiction or consented to the relief.
That matters greatly to a spouse sitting in Punjab who receives information that the marriage has supposedly already been dissolved thousands of kilometres away. The legal status of the marriage in India may still require examination. And that is why an NRI marriage can generate proceedings in more than one country at the same time.
The Registration of Marriage of Non-Resident Indian Bill, 2019 was introduced in Rajya Sabha by then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on 11th February 2019. It proposed compulsory registration within 30 days for covered NRI marriages. It also proposed amendments allowing passport authorities to impound or revoke a passport for failure to comply with registration requirements and sought to facilitate service of summons and warrants by publication on a designated website in specified circumstances.
The parliamentary Standing Committee examining the Bill concluded in 2020 that the proposed legislation was not comprehensive enough. It observed that merely putting pressure on NRI spouses accused of offences to appear before authorities would not address the whole problem. The committee recommended broader legislation dealing with fraudulent NRI marriages, including divorce, maintenance and child custody.
The Bill continued to appear in PRS’s list of pending legislation during the 2026 Budget Session. Seven years after it was introduced, it had still not become law.
In 2024, the Law Commission’s Report No. 287 effectively returned to the same unfinished agenda, but recommended a much broader law covering registration, divorce, maintenance, children, overseas judicial process and passport information.
The chronology is difficult to ignore. Parliament examined abandoned NRI wives in 2007, Punjab later made marriage registration compulsory, the Centre issued detailed guidance, NCW conducted awareness campaigns, and the government introduced a dedicated NRI marriage Bill in 2019. A parliamentary committee subsequently sought a more comprehensive law, while the Law Commission returned to the problem in 2024. Yet in 2026, Punjab was again discussing tens of thousands of women reportedly abandoned by NRI husbands. At some point, therefore, the question has to move beyond what additional law is required and ask why families continue entering the same risky bargains despite years of warnings.
There is no foolproof matrimonial background check. Genuine documents cannot guarantee a good spouse, and even a sincere promise of sponsorship can collapse with the marriage or changing immigration rules. But basic verification can reduce avoidable risks. Families should independently verify immigration status, employment, marital history and overseas address, register the marriage, preserve relevant documents and ensure that large payments for education or migration move through traceable channels. An education consultant should never be treated as an immigration guarantee.
The most important question should be asked before money changes hands: would the couple still marry if neither could ever move abroad? If an IELTS-qualified bride becomes unattractive once she cannot sponsor the groom, or an NRI groom loses his appeal if the bride must remain in Punjab, migration was not incidental to the marriage. It was part of the bargain.
Personal responsibility does not absolve the state. Punjab needs credible year-wise data separating complaints, FIRs, charge sheets, proclaimed offenders, passport or LOC requests and final outcomes. The data should also distinguish abandoned spouses, cheating allegations, cruelty, foreign divorce disputes and other matrimonial cases, with contemporary gender-wise tracking as complaints from husbands in study-visa marriages emerge.
Families also need realistic information about what authorities can actually achieve. Police can investigate offences, courts can issue process, and passport or LOC mechanisms may operate where legal requirements are met. But no Indian authority can guarantee a foreign visa, force two adults to remain together or convert an oral promise of “Canada le jayegi” into an immigration entitlement.
Raj’s decades-old case remains difficult to read. She reached Delhi airport believing she would finally leave for Canada with her husband and children. He handed her an envelope supposedly containing her sponsorship papers. It contained blank sheets, and the plane left without her.
Nothing about her family’s failure to investigate the groom excuses what happened. A fraudster remains responsible for fraud. But prevention cannot begin only after an FIR.
For years, the NRI groom carried a matrimonial premium because he already possessed the foreign address. The study-visa boom created another version: the IELTS-qualified bride whose migration could potentially open a route for her husband. The gender changed, but the calculation was remarkably similar.
Law can punish proven cheating, cruelty and other offences. Government can improve data, coordination and cross-border enforcement. What neither can do is convert a wedding into a guaranteed boarding pass. Until Punjab separates the choice of a spouse from the promise of foreign settlement, immigration routes may change and Canada may change its rules, but someone will continue to be left behind.
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