Love blooms online, then comes to a virtual end

“I want to stay here with my husband, I’m happy here,” says the bride who fled home for the stranger whose way with words at the MIRC chat line pushed the girl to work longer hours packaging cosmetics at a Toronto factory, to buy her passage to India. “First we were only friends, then we fell in love, chatting online for three-fours daily.”

Tony, then a partner in a local cybercafe with a penchant for picking netpals, had proposed to his unseen dream girl online, June last year. All was well until a “shocking” call from the London airport, one year later, on June 3 while he served customers in the family’s fast-food canteen, had Sukhwinder announce to “mummy” (Tony’s mother Nancy) that she was on her way to tie the knot.

While the groom’s astonished family rapidly recovered from the thunderbolt to marry off the pair on June 6, the Singhs heard the news of their eldest daughter’s marriage over the telephone the next day. “Sukhwinder’s relatives warned us not to come to Punjab,” says Tony. And “My parents are against the marriage because he is not Punjabi, and not rich,” says Sukhwinder.

The romance with fate turned ugly on June 22, when a midnight knock at 477, Old bazaar, Khadki, had Tony and Sukhwinder bundled off into a Trax by the Ludhiana police. Nancy alleges that the four-some also broke the family’s telephone and made off with the instrument.

“The police beat me in the Trax and physically abused me and Sukhwinder,” alleges Tony, who was unceremoniously dumped out of the vehicle near the Bopodi police chowkey. In true Bollywood style, the wronged heroine’s cries of bachao alerted the Bopodi police, who in turn received a wireless message from the Khadki police, alerted by Tony’s father. The showdown between cops at Warje-Maval finally ended with the girl spending the night in police custody at the Khadki police chowky.

Nancy may fondly call the newest addition to the family her “daughter” and insist “we will never send her back,” as she clutches a copy of the police complaint signed by 10 representatives of the local Mahila Mandal dashed off to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone III) on June 22.

For Tony, refused custody of his wife, the battle will continue in Punjab. While the motley Punjabi collection will take the first flight out today, defence counsel Sunil Agarwal with two representatives of the Paul family in tow, will follow by the evening Jhelum Express, ready to set straight a simple love story that went horribly wrong.

Agarwal has applied for protection from the Maharashtra police during the journey and stay at Punjab.