Abroad and abandoned is a scary prospect. And over the last five years, at least 2,300 such women sought help as they were deserted by their spouses in a foreign land with next to nothing to hold on to or sometimes even travel back home.
That is why the Women Safety Wing of Telangana police headed by former ADGP Swati Lakra came up with NRI Cells to bring such women out of their agony.
GUARDIANS ANGELS
These NRI Cells deal with cases wherein the spouses or their relatives are accused of causing distress to the women after taking them abroad. Their main objective is to help these women in liaison with stakeholders like Embassies, the National Commission for Women, Ministry of External Affairs among others.
Ms. Lakra in an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds shared that there are numerous cases where the accused spouses abandoned their wives and fled to another country or took them along to some country and deserted them.
Help for such women is critical since the accused isn’t in India, she said, adding that it used to be very difficult to file a case against these accused and hold them accountable. “Thus, we came up with the concept of opening NRI Cells involving all the stakeholders to guide and help these women stuck in similar cases,”
A NECESSARY STEP
The NRI Cell acts as a platform for the victims to share their suffering and provides them with all possible legal guidance. There are legal experts associated with the cell to assist the victims in filing domestic violence and maintenance cases.
According to Ms. Lakra, opening such a cell had become a necessity as in the majority of domestic abuse cases abroad, it is a herculean task to bring the accused spouse to justice.
“They slip through legal procedures despite charge sheets filed and extradition turns into nightmares. The police are unable to bring them back to attend the trials which makes them go scot-free,” Ms Lakra explained.
“Most of these cases invariably involve a second woman. I have seen cases where the boy’s family gets him married off to a girl here against his will when he already has a partner abroad. This ultimately leads to the man abandoning his wife and fleeing with his partner,” she added.
“Other cases include duping by partners where the girl’s parents fail to conduct proper background checks and police verifications and just send their daughters away with a stranger,” shared the senior IPS officer.
NRI CELL
So how does it work? An inspector rank officer handles the case information when a victim approaches the NRI Cell. The officer connects the victim to the appropriate regional police station and, if necessary, introduces her to a legal adviser and an NGO. Their role is to counsel and explain the step-by-step procedure.
NRI cases reported at the state police stations are forwarded to relevant Indian embassies by the Ministry of External Affairs. The majority of instances involve NRI spouses who live in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, or Australia, Ms. Lakra added. It is a tedious process to trace the accused and get him or her to attend court. In worst cases, LOC is issued and the passport is revoked, she explained.
DHAIRYA APP
Ms. Lakra and her team have also launched an app for providing redressal on the go to domestic violence and abuse victims.
The app called ‘Dhairya’ was launched as a pilot project. The app works through Dial 100 emergency response.
Once a victim registers a complaint on the emergency number, the Women Safety Wing is notified through the app, which helps them in taking immediate quick action.
“Once the action is taken, we also follow up with the victims. We ask them if they are okay; if their problem was taken care of; if they need online or offline counselling and provide them with all the necessary facilities through our ground mechanisms or the NGO that have collaborated with us,” shared the officer.
