Attaching assets of absconders may help

and as postal messages. In all the cases, women had approached the police who promptly registered a case. While these cases were widely highlighted, several other cases did not make into news.

Inspector, women police station (South), G. Laxmi Madhavi, said in many of the cases, the husbands stays abroad and divorce their wives.

“Although cases are being heard in courts, the husband, who is the main culprits, remains absconding. As a practice, we inform the accused over phone about the case and ask him to return. If he fails, then through our higherups, we issue a LoC,” Madhavi said.

Getting the men extradited from any country is a big task as several state and Union government agencies are yet to be involved. “To avoid the long procedure, the police just issues an LoC to all airports and wait,” Mohd Ishaq, a noted lawyer, said. Women activists feel that the Centre’s proposal to attach the properties of absconding husbands and his parents’ properties in India could help the victims of ‘triple talaq’ get some justice.

The Union ministry of external affairs, in an attempt to address the problem of NRI men marrying Indian women and abandoning them later, proposed changes in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) also. It suggested declaring such men as ‘absconders’ if they fail to appear in the court after three summons. The MEA had written to the home ministry and the law ministry to consider the proposed amendments.

Jameela Nishath, of Shaheen women resource and welfare association, said that at least women staying here could benefit in some way through this.

“If the women are young and have one or two children, they are getting remarried. But those who were into relationship for more than five years are facing innumerable problems,” she said.

Union minister for women and child development also proposed to upload the names of those persons who fail to attend the court on MEA’s website under the title ‘absconders’. “More important step will be to revoke their passports on an urgent basis and try to bring them back to face trial,” Naseem Jahan, another women activist, said.