Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, May 31

FIR No. 55 dated May 29 registered at the Dhariwal police station on a complaint filed by Gurdeep Kaur (50) against her ‘wayward’ husband has become the talk of the town. These days, conversation in the non-descript township of Dhariwal often veers around Kaur’s fight against the system. Her struggle also speaks volumes about how she stayed composed and dignified even after being abandoned by her husband following a skin disease, which threatened to devour her body, and still continues to do so.

After braving taunts and an insensitive police system which refused to listen to her pleas just because her husband was politically well-connected, Kaur approached SSP Nanak Singh last week.

Finally, it was the police chief who turned out to be her saviour but not before he assigned an SP-rank officer to conduct a thorough probe. As a result of the inquiry, FIR No. 55 carrying sections 493 (cohabitation by a man after deceitfully inducing of belief of lawful marriage), 420 (cheating), 509 (intending to insult the modesty of a woman), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the IPC was registered again her husband Rajwinder Pal Singh Kaler.

Dhariwal SHO Amandeep Singh Randhawa said several police teams were in the process of raiding Kaler’s hideouts. The accused has been at large ever since the news reached him that “his time was over and that the police had booked him on various charges.”

The case in a nutshell

In 1988, Gurdeep was married to an Air Force officer Sukhjinder Pal Singh. The couple had two daughters — Sukhdeep Kaur and Navdeep Kaur. In 2005, her husband passed away and two years later she was virtually arm-twisted by her in-laws to tie the knot with her brother-in-law Rajwinder. In 2018, Gurdeep caught a skin infection, which defaced her body. Kaler and his mother then ‘committed the cardinal sin of abandoning’ a helpless Kaur. After forcing her out of his house, Kaler got involved with another woman. The alibi that he took was that “the woman was her mother’s caretaker.” Kaur’s fight against the insensitive system had now commenced in full vigour. Her visits to police stations to get justice became common. People started mocking her. She would be ridiculed anywhere and everywhere she went. She needed justice, which was not forthcoming. She would be waived away by cops whenever she complained to them. She found herself isolated from the system and became a forlorn figure of her former self. Finally, last week, she mustered enough courage to visit the office of the SSP. He gave her a patient hearing and ordered the SP (Investigation) to inquire into the exact sequence of events leading to the woman’s plight. Later, on the recommendations of the SP, a case was made out against Kaler. “Justice was a bit delayed in this case but we ensured it was not denied,” said the SSP.

Now, a torchbearer for those in distress

Gurdeep Kaur now gets regular calls from distressed women on how to fight the system both from within and outside. “I urge women who are often at the receiving end of their in-laws’ tantrums to stand up and be counted. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. After all the trials and tribulations I had to go through, the long arm of the law has finally caught up with my errant husband,” she said.