663 NRIs on list of ‘wanted’, mostly for sham marriages

Tuesday, 02/09/2014

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140902/punjab.htm#3

Jalandhar : The Punjab Police have declared 663 Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) proclaimed offenders (PO) in matrimonial disputes and other criminal cases. Of the 27 police districts in Punjab, Doaba region, the hub of NRIs, accounts for more than half of the proclaimed offenders. Most of them have been declared wanted for solemnising sham marriages and ditching their spouses in Punjab.

The Jalandhar (rural) police district has the maximum 195 NRIs wanted in various criminal cases, followed by Moga (128), Jalandhar-city (72), Amritsar-city (34), Faridkot (32), Ludhiana-rural (28), Ludhiana-city (22), Khanna (17), Ropar (14) and Hoshiarpur (12).

Patiala, Pathankot and Fazilka districts had no wanted NRIs whereas the count stood below five in Bathinda, Ferozepur, Muktsar and Mansa districts, said Assistant Inspector General (NRI wing) Charanjit Singh. He said some of the NRIs had been evading arrest for the past over a decade.

Since the NRI wing of the Punjab Police was established in 2004, the state now has 15 NRI police stations, which have 123 POs. Also, the process is on to declare 33 more NRIs as proclaimed offenders. A list of wanted NRIs (The Tribune has a copy) shows that most of them have been hiding in countries like the US, the UK, Canada, Italy, Germany, New Zealand and Australia. Canada has the maximum 44 POs, followed by the US (27), the UK (16), Italy (13) and Australia (8). The remaining countries have less than five POs.

Gurpreet Deo, Inspector General (NRI wing), said directions had been issued to the heads of all NRI police stations to speed up the process of attaching the properties of the POs.

“The properties of some NRIs who solemnised sham marriages were attached recently. The police are already in the process of attaching the properties of the remaining POs,” she said.

About the extradition of wanted NRIs, she said it was a complex procedure. “To arrest an NRI, we mostly rely on look out circular. We are alerted whenever a proclaimed offender lands at any airport in India,” she said. Deo said not all complaints against NRIs turned out to be true. “The names of two NRIs were recently struck off the list of proclaimed offenders. At times complaints are filed only to harass them. We always conduct a thorough investigation and give due hearing to the NRIs too,” she said.