A woman deserted by her Non Resident Indian husband has appealed to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to help secure the deportation of her husband from the United States so as to save the life of her ailing baby girl.
Narrating her plight to rediff.com, Sanyogita Reddy, who runs a software firm in Hyderabad, said she has sought immediate deportation of her husband to India since her daughter Shreya Reddy, who is suffering from congenital cerebral palsy and leukaemia, needs a bone marrow transplant from him.
Sanyogita Reddy said as her blood group does not match the baby's, the bone marrow has to come from her husband. The transplant needs to be done within the next two months.
"I have made a plea to the chief minister, asking him to get my husband deported from the United States before August 15, 2003. My child definitely needs her father and so, on humanitarian grounds, I request everybody on earth to help me in this regard," she said.
A computers engineer, Sanyogita Reddy is the promoter of a Hyderabad-based software company. The 26-year-old Sanyogita married Damidi Narayan Reddy, a 37-year-old NRI based at Milpitas in California.
The marriage took place on June 19, 2002. "I was not aware of his two previous weddings at that time. He married me for reasons best known to him but probably it was for money. I have spent more than Rs 6 million on him so far."
She believed her husband's claim that he was the owner of a chain of Indian restaurants in California, but came to know only belatedly that he was only a manager in a restaurant in the US.
"When he said that his business was not doing well and wanted my help, I gave him all my savings, which I earned through my clients for various software projects in Europe and Africa," she explained.
Sanyogita said that when her husband came to know that she had become penniless, he took the flight and went off to the US in November 2002, despite being aware of the fact that she was pregnant and she needed medical attention.
She was admitted twice in a corporate hospital in January and February 2003. A baby girl was born to her, two and a half months premature, on February 8, 2003.
"My child was born premature because her heartbeat was nil. After looking at my child, I gathered some courage and decided to live life all by myself but I could not understand why my husband left me. I always thought that he would come back to me," she said.
When she called up her husband's place in the US in May, she came to know that he was on a vacation to India. "I went to his house in the city and confronted him but he refused to accept me or the baby. He put the baby on the road in the scorching sun and he was not moved a bit by my tears and the child's cries. Later, when I thought that he would leave India any moment, I finally approached the police with a complaint and asked them to seize his passport," she pointed out.
"On the basis of my complaint lodged at Women's Police Station at Begumpet on May 20, 2003, the police booked a case against him under section 498 of Indian Penal Code for dowry harassment. The police merely noted his passport particulars but did not seize the document," she added.
Sanyogita Reddy said she also took an appointment with the officials at the US Consulate General at Chennai on June 14 but she came to know that her husband had gone to the US on June 11 itself.
"This means that he definitely had some contacts, who helped him in fleeing the country even as the police issued a lookout notice to the Immigration and Customs authorities, asking them to arrest my husband whenever he passes through the airports," she claimed.
"Finally, when the doctors said my daughter needed a bone marrow transplant to survive, I approached some women's organisations in the US and they have pledged their support to me. I have also appealed to the Andhra Pradesh government to secure my husband's deportation back to India. I am waiting for the response," she said.
Sanyogita Reddy said that Narayan Reddy approached her in 2002 to help him out with a software package for connecting the chain of restaurants supposedly run by him through remote administration. It was then that Sanyogita Reddy decided to marry him despite fierce opposition from her parents.
She later came to know that Narayan Reddy, who was living in the US since April 1988, had married and divorced two other women. First, he had married an Indian lady in 1992 and divorced her in 1996 and later he married an American citizen to get his green card and divorced her too.
He got the green card in 2001 and visited India six times in the last 15 years, including three trips made since 2002.
Sanyogita alleged that her husband has threatened her of dire consequences. "Time and again, I keep getting messages over my cell phone threatening my life, my daughter's life and even my pet dog's life," she claimed.