A woman who went to India for the funeral of her husband was kidnapped by his family and forced to marry her father-in-law’s nephew, a High Court judge was told today.
The 29-year-old Sikh was allegedly told she would be killed if she didn’t wed the 27-year-old groom, who she eventually fled and returned to the UK.
Today Mrs Justice Parker ordered that the marriage - which came two-and-a-half weeks after the death of the first husband - should be annulled because it was forced on the woman.
Ruling: The Sikh woman's marriage was today annulled at the High Court, above
The judge, who barred identification of the parties to protect the woman, ordered that copies of her ruling should be sent to the Home Office and Metropolitan Police.
The wife told the judge today her first husband’s family in the Punjab was wealthy and influential and she was from a poor background.
They had arranged her first marriage in India and she came to the UK where her husband served a jail sentence for drug offences.
He was killed in a car accident in India and when she went to his funeral, her father-in-law ordered her to marry his nephew, who was two years younger than her.
Mrs Justice Parker said the wife had told her that in the Punjab she had been given sedative pills by her husband’s family and then injected with drugs when they believed she was not taking them.
‘Her father-in-law continued to put pressure on her with implied and direct threats.
‘She was not allowed to see her parents and only allowed to make supervised telephone calls. She was confined to her room and closely guarded.’
The threats included that she would never see her parents again and would not be allowed to go back to England.
On more than one occasion, her father-in-law said to her he could kill her and make it look like suicide, said the judge.
She said she had only met the nephew once before and when she saw him in a corridor and asked him what was going on, he said he did not want to talk about it.
The judge said: ‘She told me it was not part of her culture to marry so soon after a death and for a wedding to take place so soon after her husband’s death was quite unprecedented.’
The judge said she was told by the wife that the new husband forced her to have sex with him.
She ran away and now lives at a secret address in London.
Mrs Justice Parker said: ‘The story is a dramatic one.
‘The evidence and what the petitioner has said wholly convinces me that her account is true. She was tearful, distressed, sad and upset.’
The judge said she believed the wife when she said her first husband had a ‘serious criminal history’ from which his family had not protected her.
Of the second marriage, she said: ‘I am quite satisfied that if she had not been subjected to the threats and pressure she would not have entered into this marriage.’
Her husband’s visa came under scrutiny from the Home Office when the wife launched the proceedings, said the judge.
His permission to remain in the UK ends on December 15, she said.
Lawyers representing the woman said she was now considering taking legal action against the family for damages for the distress she suffered.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1079187/Widow-drugged-laws-forced-marry-flying-India-husbands-funeral.html?ITO=1490
