New Delhi, July 7: Delhi now has the dubious distinction of being home to the most “honeymoon wives” — women abandoned by NRI husbands — in the country.

The latest annual report of the NRI cell of the National Commission for Women (NCW) reveals that Delhi registered 59 such cases in 2012-13. Punjab, which has for years grappled with the problem of young brides abandoned within days or weeks of marriage, registered 30 cases. (See chart)

Over the past four years, out of the 984 cases registered with the NRI cell, 177 are from Delhi. Many of the complaints are from educated women.

“Till recent years, Punjab would always lead the pack. However, dedicated work done on the part of the state government has ensured that such numbers have come down steadily and now from the top slot they are in fourth position,” said NCW chairperson Mamata Sharma.

The highest number of cases in Delhi involve men in the US (19), followed by Australia (8). “More and more educated girls are falling in this trap. They log on to matrimonial sites, fall in love and get married hurriedly. They don’t check the man’s credentials. Most of the cases that we get now are from IT professionals, software engineers and other educated girls,” said Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar, member, NCW.

A 32-year-old programmer with a reputable company in Delhi fell in love with a London-based man whom she met on an online matrimonial site and chatted with on Facebook for three months. The two also met once before agreeing to ask their families to arrange the marriage. The wedding took place in 2008, but within months she found out she had been duped.

“He went to London without me, taking the money my parents offered to set up our home. It’s been five years, I haven’t heard from him,” the programmer has written in her complaint to NCW. She had convinced her parents not to do a background check on the man because she felt she could “trust” him. She is now fighting a case and the man is due to return in two months and present himself before a Delhi court.

In another case, a 35-year-old engineer in an IT firm in Mumbai got married to an NRI whose parents had found her profile on a matrimonial website. The marriage was fixed by both sets of parents and the groom, a researcher in Canada, came down to India for eight weeks for the wedding. He left her with his parents, promising to return to take her back. This was six years ago. The engineer later found her husband already had a wife in Canada and had married her under pressure from his parents. She has filed for divorce.

Both Prabhavalkar and Sharma agree that Punjab has been able to check the menace. The state government has set up a police department — Punjab Police, NRI Affairs — to deal with such complaints. Dos and don’ts have been issued to help prospective brides. One such is the suggestion that the women report a marriage with an NRI to the passport office in Jalandhar, which can help them track down the man later in case he abandons his wife.

“Once we get the complaints, we write to diplomatic offices abroad to push for the guy to return. If that doesn’t work, we pressure the family of the man to force him to return. Most cases I have handled, the families have given an undertaking that the man will return, and often they do,” said Prabhavalkar, who said complaints include demand for dowry, cruelty, abandonment of the woman on foreign shores and non-consummation of marriage.