‘HOLIDAY WIVES’
RPO issues show-cause notices to 12 NRI grooms
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, February 9
The local Regional Passport Office (RPO) authorities have issued show-cause notices to 12 NRIs who have allegedly deserted their wives here.
Complainants have been making a beeline for the RPO ever since a Women Grievance Section was started for such victims on February 4. So far, 34 women have submitted the relevant documents seeking action against the accused.
Sources said that out of the 34 complaints, they had traced details of 12 persons who had been asked to reply to the notices, failing which their passports would be cancelled/ revoked as per provisions of the Passports Act, 1967. All remaining cases would be dealt with in the coming days, the sources informed.
Shamefully, the Doaba region with over 15,000 cases (specifically Jalandhar district) tops the list of over 30,000 such reported incidents across the country as per data compiled by the National Commission for Women and Ministry of Women and Child Development.
Successive governments, political outfits and social organisations have been bedevilled by this burning social problem for the past over two decades but to no avail.
The menace had assumed such alarming proportions that the foreign media had dubbed such victims “holiday wives.” But in the absence of punitive measures in place, the anti-social activities of such offenders have remained unbridled so far, the sources pointed out.
