NRI remarries,
citing divorce from missing wife
Chandigarh, December 8, 2006
Chandigarh News Line
Express India
Varinder Bhatia
City girl Praneet Kaur had married NRI Jaspreet
Singh in 2003. A few months ago, Jaspreet remarried, saying
Praneet has divorced him in an US court. Except Praneet had
never gone to USA. In fact, she had gone missing from her Sector
33 home in March 2005. She is yet to be found.
How did the girl, who, according to her family
— and their inquiries at the US Embassy — never
went to USA, divorce her husband in a US court?
Acting on the basis of complaint lodged by Praneet’s sister
Harjot Kaur, a Sector 33 resident, Chandigarh Police today booked
Jaspreet Singh Natt, his father Jasjit Singh Natt and mother
Satwinder Kaur Natt for allegedly committing fraud and forgery.
The three accused are suspected to be in the US, where Jaspreet
had been working.
Jaspreet had got married to Praneet on November
24, 2003 at Hotel Shivalikview, Sector 17. For two years, Praneet
stayed in India. But when Jaspreet’s parents went to USA,
she returned home.
Praneet, said her sister Harjot Kaur, was tortured
and maltreated by her in-laws. After coming back to her parental
home in Sector 33, she started working in a food-joint. In March
2005, she went missing and her family filed a case on charges
of kidnapping. Despite running from pillar to post for one year,
the family failed to trace Praneet.
A few months ago, her husband Jaspreet and his
family members came to India to get him remarried. They possessed
documents of Jaspreet and Praneet’s divorce, which Jaspreet
submitted in the office of Registrar of Marriage, Ludhiana.
According to the documents, the divorce had been granted by
a Nevada court.
It came as a shock to Praneet’s family.
“Where is my sister? How could she be in
USA, when she never went there? I took her to US Embassy last
year in March, where she was never granted any visa. Ever since
she was deserted by her husband in March 2005, she was working
in one of the food-joints in Chandigarh. Despite best of our
efforts, she could not get a visa to go to USA,” Praneet’s
sister Harjot Kaur told Newsline.
After she went missing from their Sector 33 home,
“we lodged a complaint with the police and a case was
registered on charges of kidnapping. Her husband Jaspreet Singh
is a Proclaimed Offender in the case. He came to India, submitted
forged documents, got remarried and again went out of country.
What did our police do? When she never went to US, how could
her husband divorce her there?” Harjot told Newsline.
When contacted, the investigating officers said
they were trying to trace the girl, which was their priority.
