New Delhi: The family of Mandeep Kaur, a Sikh woman who died by suicide in New York last month after allegedly enduring eight years of domestic abuse, are pushing for the custody of her two minor daughters — aged four and six years — who they claim are now with their father in New Jersey, US.
“We have appealed to the Indian government to send the children back to India and give us custody. Our priority is the children because they are currently not in safe hands. They are in New Jersey with their father and he could be abusing them too,” Kaur’s brother Sandeep Singh, who lives in Uttar Pradesh, told ThePrint.
Legal experts, however, told ThePrint that it may not be easy for the family to get custody of Kaur’s children, since the father is a permanent resident of the US, while the mother’s family is in India, and laws and jurisdictions of both countries will need to be addressed.
On 3 August, Kaur, 30, hung herself after posting a video on Instagram about the domestic abuse she had allegedly endured, and showed what appeared to be bruises on her hands. She claimed she was repeatedly beaten up by her husband, Ranjodhbir Singh Sandhu, for dowry and for giving birth to girls.
The video went viral and prompted demonstrations from members of the Punjabi community in New York, calling for legal steps against Sandhu.
After her death, Kaur’s family said they were working with the Indian government and the Indian Consulate in New York to repatriate her mortal remains and had also started an online petition for it, but a week later, the body was handed over to her husband who carried out a cremation.
“By cremating her body, Ranjodhbir destroyed evidence. There was also a video from a few years ago on social media in which you could see him pushing her on the bed and beating her, while the daughters cried in the background. But the US authorities are yet to take action against him,” alleged Singh.
He added that Kaur, encouraged by her family, had filed a police complaint against her husband in April last year, but she later withdrew it.
Sources in New York, told ThePrint that a local investigation is underway, but no action has been taken against the husband yet. The sources added that one of the daughters is an Indian passport holder, while the other is an American citizen.
Kaur’s family said they are also waiting for action to be taken against the husband’s family, who also live in Uttar Pradesh. Earlier on 5 August, they filed an FIR against Kaur’s in-laws on six charges — abetment of suicide, harassment, wrongful confinement, “voluntarily causing hurt”, taking dowry and demanding dowry.
ThePrint reached Sandhu’s father, Mukhtayar, on his mobile phone but found the number to be switched off.
According to her family, Kaur and Sandhu were married in India in 2015. A few days after her death, Sandhu told local media that the way her suicide is being presented on social media is “misleading”.
Meanwhile Kaur’s death case has ignited dialogue on the alleged domestic abuse suffered by Indian women abroad.
Shiv Sena member of Parliament Priyanka Chaturvedi wrote to External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar last month, demanding the creation of an institutional mechanism to deal with domestic abuse abroad.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, 3,955 complaints related to matrimonial disputes from married women of Indian citizenship have been received between 2017 and 2019.
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Legalities surrounding custody
Meanwhile, to gain custody of the couple’s minor children, legal experts told ThePrint, Kaur’s family has to either file a case in the US against Sandhu or wait for the District Attorney (DA) of Queens, New York City, to take action.
Alok Prasanna Kumar, senior resident fellow at Delhi’s Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, said that in India there would have been a case for “substantive law” — the set of laws that governs how members of a society are to behave — but the issue is that the parties are outside of India.
“If the parties were in India, a case could be filed under Indian laws that govern marriage and guardianship. But since they are outside of this jurisdiction and the father has permanent residence, someone from the woman’s family needs to file a case in the US, arguing that they are a better guardian,” Kumar told ThePrint.
He added that it would not be possible for the Indian government to pressure the US to extradite the children, as extradition usually applies to fugitives and, more so, a criminal case is yet to be filed against the husband for extradition to take place.
Other experts, like Supreme Court advocate Pallavi Pratap, said the family’s “best bet” is if the DA starts prosecuting the case.
“If the woman’s family wants to agitate their right in another jurisdiction, they have to go there and file a case. But even then, it will be difficult since the father is the natural guardian. The family’s best bet is if the District Attorney starts a prosecution against the husband. Then, the question about guardianship becomes more viable,” Pratap told ThePrint.
She added, however, that even if the DA did take action, the children would likely go into child protection services in the US, instead of being directly handed over to Kaur’s family.
In the meantime, Kaur’s story is another statistic among the many where NRI spouses experience alleged abuse or mistreatment without “proper legal recourse”, said women’s rights activist Yogita Bhayana, who heads non-profit People Against Rapes In India (PARI).
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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