Rumours Of Sham Marriage Enrage Punjabi Community After Suicide

[Guest Guest]

Rumours of sham marriage enrage Punjabi community after suicide

October 27, 2011

Raveena Aulakh - Toronto Star

Gurdip Saroa, left, jumped into the Fraser River

days after his wife Harmanjit Dhami, emigrated from India.

SUBMITTED IMAGE

A new bride, a drowned husband and some sordid allegations — the Indo-Canadian community in Toronto and Vancouver is once again confronting the maelstrom of fraudulent marriages.

“I have never seen so much anger before,” said Rajinder Saini, host of Parvasi Radio, a daily Punjabi talk show in Toronto.

“Maybe because a man is dead.”

At the heart of this unfolding drama, which has had the Punjabi airwaves chattering non-stop for the past week, is a 19-year-old woman.

Harmanjit Dhami, petite and doe-eyed, married Gurdip Saroa, a 22-year-old trucker from Surrey, B.C., in India in February. It was an arranged marriage, attended by more than 1,000 people. The couple lived there for two months and, by all accounts, were happy.

Saroa returned to Surrey and filed sponsorship papers. Dhami landed in Vancouver on Oct. 12.

Within a week, he would be dead.

“This is all bad, so bad,” a teary Rajwinder Brahmvir, Saroa’s sister, said in an interview from Surrey.

She said Dhami told her a day after arriving in Canada that she had married Saroa to come here and that she had no intention of living with him.

For the next four days, there were continuous fights in the house.

At about 1 p.m. on Oct. 17, the couple went out to buy tickets for a trip to Brampton where Dhami’s uncle lives. An hour later, Brahmvir says, she got a call from her brother. “He was sobbing and said Harman had run away from the car,” she said. “He said sorry and hung up.”

Saroa was seen jumping into the Fraser River from the Pattullo Bridge. His body has not been found.

At her uncle’s home in Brampton, Dhami refuted all allegations.

She said her husband sexually assaulted her. “My first night at his home and he hit me,” she said, choking back tears. It continued for the next three days, she added.

Recalling the events of Oct. 17, she said Saroa took her to an isolated place and tried to strangle her with a phone charger cord in the car.

“Look at this,” she said, showing strangulation marks on her neck. “I managed to jump out and I ran.”

A Good Samaritan called 911 and police were soon at the scene.

An RCMP spokesperson said officers are investigating a missing person case and an assault case. No charges have been laid.

So, did Dhami marry Saroa to come to Canada? And why did he jump into the river? Was he lovelorn or was it shame that she would tell people he was assaulting her?

The couple’s story is a typical he-said, she-said conflict. But in a community rocked by fraudulent marriages, where people wed to immigrate and then abandon their spouses, the incident has sparked universal rage.

Dhami has been called names. There are demands to deport her. Some have said her family should be ostracized. But no one has asked her what happened in Surrey in those four days and no one, except her uncle, has defended her.

Saini acknowledges that.

“It’s a big issue in the community,” the radio host said. “If people think there’s even a hint of fraud, they want something done.”

Fair enough, said Deepa Mattoo, who works for the South Asian Legal Clinic in Toronto. “But it shouldn’t be a media trial like this,” she said. “It stigmatizes women.”

Mattoo, like many other social workers, worries that once new legislation to curb marriage fraud kicks in, women may be held ransom to their immigration status.

In 2009, nearly 45,000 people immigrated to Canada as spouses. Citizenship and Immigration Canada says 1,000 fraudulent marriages are reported annually.

Ottawa is proposing legislation to prevent a person who has been sponsored to come to Canada as a spouse from sponsoring a new partner for five years.

Another proposal is for a period of conditional permanent residence requiring a recently sponsored spouse to stay in a “bona fide” relationship with their sponsor after becoming a permanent resident. The period could be two years or more.

Mattoo said the legislation will be a death sentence for abused women. “They’ll be stuck in that abusive relationship.”

Meanwhile, Dhami is weighing her options.

“I want to stay in Canada and study,” she said. “I can do it.”

Taken from: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/...r-suicide?bn=1

[singh135]

Shocking. Don't know if we will ever know the real truth

[VanHelsingh]

Shocking. Don't know if we will ever know the real truth

It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

The poor lad entered the marriage thinking it was going to be for life. The girl from India obviously had other plans although to her credit she came clean to her husband. The lad couldn't handle the betrayal and was obviously shocked to such an extent that he took his own life.

A word of advice to all potential males who may find themselves in a similar situation: Do your homework. Don't take the word of the bacholeh (who usually have vested interests) or the girl's parents about her integrity. Discreetly ensure you know everything about her life outside her parental home, i.e. any potential third party who may be pulling the strings in the background.

A married girl has NO reason to arrive from India and then get-up and leave her marital home within a matter of days - unless there is serious danger to her life which is, of course, understandable and in that situation she should be helped.

[singh135]

It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.

The poor lad entered the marriage thinking it was going to be for life. The girl from India obviously had other plans although to her credit she came clean to her husband. The lad couldn't handle the betrayal and was obviously shocked to such an extent that he took his own life.

A word of advice to all potential males who may find themselves in a similar situation: Do your homework. Don't take the word of the bacholeh (who usually have vested interests) or the girl's parents about her integrity. Discreetly ensure you know everything about her life outside her parental home, i.e. any potential third party who may be pulling the strings in the background.

A married girl has NO reason to arrive from India and then get-up and leave her marital home within a matter of days - unless there is serious danger to her life which is, of course, understandable and in that situation she should be helped.

I'm not a genius by any account and I respect your views but feel the story doesn't provide any evidence disclaiming her aligation of marital abuse. Her claim of strangulation is disturbing and we must be careful to restrain chauvinism and be strictly objective. We have not heard her account in detail and the story of sham marriage appears to be hearsay since she appears to have not condoned or outright rejected the claim. The media seem to be propagating it. There is no denying sham marriages exist, but witch hunts don't constructively help in such a devastating situation, where people have high emotions following such a loss.

[VanHelsingh]

I'm not a genius by any account and I respect your views but feel the story doesn't provide any evidence disclaiming her aligation of marital abuse. Her claim of strangulation is disturbing and we must be careful to restrain chauvinism and be strictly objective. We have not heard her account in detail and the story of sham marriage appears to be hearsay since she appears to have not condoned or outright rejected the claim. The media seem to be propagating it. There is no denying sham marriages exist, but witch hunts don't constructively help in such a devastating situation, where people have high emotions following such a loss.

Apologies for the abrupt tone of my post above and do I agree with your assessment of the situation. However I feel the media is completely wrong on this situation. This was no sham marriage and I think the boy's side arranged the marriage believing it to be for "keeps".

Although I would say the strangulation allegation is a classic ploy to deflect blame from the actual accused party. For example, I've heard first hand accounts of girls from India saying their NRI husband did not consumate the marriage because he was unable to...well you know what I mean. These same girls then also throw in allegations of physical violence just to add that little bit of masala to the whole sordid affair.

But I guess the facts will eventually emerge one day.

[PAL 07]

I think this confirms the age old belief that man's biggest weakness is woman