I too was a victim
I am a victim with a false dowry and domestic violence (DV) case filed against me, my parents and sister in India under section 498A.
Both me and my wife’s families are settled in Dubai and my wife and her family approached Dubai courts to file for divorce; but after two counselling sessions they went to India and filed the case there. I even got threatening calls from someone in India saying he was a policeman who told me a case had been filed against me and my family.
They embarrassed me by calling on my office landline telling all to the phone attendant and asked for my boss’s telephone number and fax number to send the FIR. My employers understood the situation and my job was saved.
Ours was an arranged marriage in November 2011 in India and then both our families returned to Dubai after three weeks of the marriage. Soon my wife started making demands threatening me with divorce if they were not fulfilled. Despite being a salaried employee I tried my best to fulfill all her wishes as she hailed from a business family. We even took an overseas holiday.
She then wanted to stay in a separate house away from my retired parents in our 3-BHK house in Sharjah. Being the only son, I could not accept this and she went to stay with her parents in January 2013. However, its been more than a year and a half now, but she has not returned.
Name withheld, Sharjah
Save husbands
Me and my mother are also victims of these laws in India and my wife is demanding Rs2-2.5 million to withdraw the cases, although she stayed with me for just 3-4 months.
I lost my job in Sharjah due to my wife’s frivolous emails to my bosses. There should be some help cell for innocent husbands who fall victim to these faulty laws. We have been blocked from coming to the UAE until this case is settled and as one knows, it takes 8-10 years due to the slow trial system in India.
Please do something for us as approximately 65,000 innocent husbands commit suicide every year in India due to such cases.
Sanjay Punjwani, India
Rampant misuse
This misuse of 498A has become so rampant that in metro cities of India cases are being filed at the rate of thousands per day. This is a major social havoc that needs to be addressed.
Many of my newly married friends or those who got married a year or two ago are going through trauma, because of this law, whereby you arrest a person based on another person’s complaint, with the other person having to go through hell and forced to give up everything just to prove their innocence.
After all this, the false accuser still walks away free, even though it is proved in court that the husband is innocent and the wife did all this just to settle scores with her husband.
It’s high time the law is scrapped or the false accuser is punished as a deterrent to other wives.
Sanjay, UAE
Gold diggers
I was a software engineer working in the US and put in an ad in leading newspapers seeking a bride. One family approached us, but I did not have enough time to check their background. I said yes to the proposal since they were all well educated though very poor.
I got married and took my wife to the US two weeks after marriage. Within those two weeks, my wife requested me to buy a window AC for her parents as a marriage gift and they also took money from me to send off my wife. In the US, my wife asked Rs1 lakh to give loan to her parents Within a few days I applied for a working visa for her. She said she would keep her earnings with her.
Soon she began threatening me with false cases and made me transfer my savings to her father’s account. I got fed up of all this and returned to India.
When I asked her to return loans taken from me she threw me out of the house in August 2011. Leaving our child and me in India, she went back to the US. My kid is with her parents and I do not even have any visiting rights. Our divorce case is going on in India for the past two years but not once did my wife attend the case. My father-in-law and wife have filed false cases against me demanding huge money to settle the issue.
I was working peacefully in the US before marriage and now my wife is working peacefully in the US while I make the rounds of courts in India.
Vijay M, India
My brother was a victim
My brother was working in Nigeria and used to chat with his would-be wife over Skype and did not have time to understand her properly before marriage.
However, the very next day after the wedding my family realized something was wrong with her. When we took her for a check-up we discovered she had the IQ of a 10-year-old child. We called her parents asking them to take her home, but the very next day they filed a dowry case against me, demanding Rs4 million for an out of court settlement.
We were not in a position to pay so much money so we decided to fight legally. My brother had to quit his job and fight for one year in Indian courts. The case was dropped due to lack of proof. The travel to court, my brothers’ job loss and the mental torture cannot be compensated by any law.
Sujith Kumar, UAE
No belief in Indian system
I have just settled my cases including divorce last month. The trauma me and my family went through in the last six years has left me with absolutely no regard or belief in the Indian legal system.
I was at one time considered by courts as an offender and my passport revoked while I was here. I had documentary evidence, pictures, voice recordings of how false the charges have been, but it is only legal terrorism and a blackmailing game. No respite to the husband.
Thankfully, no Red Corner notices are accepted any longer by Interpol from India which are related to IPC 498A or allied cases.
Name withheld, Abu Dhabi
