It was reported here in local news that Avtar Grewal would be returning to the United States from India to face trial for the murder of his wife.
India's highest court has ordered the extradition of a Canadian man(Auth: he was only a resident alien) to the Valley to stand trial on a murder charge in the slaying of his estranged wife in her Ahwatukee home more than four years ago.
Avtar Grewal, 37, was detained on a murder warrant in New Delhi in March 2007 after stepping off a plane days after police found Navneet Kaur, 30, strangled in the home where she lived alone in the 4200 block of East Redwood Lane, near 40th Street and Pecos Road.
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Grewal had been fighting extradition for the past several years on grounds that he should not be turned over to the United States because he could face the death penalty.
Punjab Newsline also has some information about the circumstances leading up to the tragic death of Mrs. Kaur:
Avtar and Navneet married in Delhi in 2005, but they had been living separately due to their jobs as per Navneet father. He told the police that Avtar wanted Navneet to leave her job in Phoenix and stay with him in Canada but Navneet, a qualified software engineer working at a senior level, didn't want to quit. This led to strained relations between the couple.
Out of this event though, we can take this time to look at what has been called "The Unreported Epidemic" of domestic violence in the South Asian community.
Indeed, a study from the American Bar Association found that:
South Asians A study of 160 South Asian women (who were married or in a heterosexual relationship), recruited through community outreach methods such as flyers, snowball sampling, and referrals in Greater Boston, found that:
* 40.8% of the participants reported that they had been physically and/or sexually abused in some way by their current male partners in their lifetime; 36.9% reported having been victimized in the past year.
* 65% of the women reporting physical abuse also reported sexual abuse, and almost a third (30.4%) of those reporting sexual abuse reported injuries, some requiring medical attention.
Anita Raj & Jay G. Silverman, Intimate Partner Violence Against South-Asian Women in Greater Boston, 57 J. Am. Med. Women's Ass'n 111 (2002).
In Arizona, a state with a growing South Asian population, the ARIZONA SOUTH ASIANS FOR SAFE FAMILIES organization is trying to bring the epidemic of domestic abuse in the South Asian community to light.
At 28, Sowmya Ayyar married a man she barely knew.
Even though she lived in California, her parents arranged her marriage to a man in Arizona according to Indian tradition.
She felt he was manipulative during their seven-month engagement, but she didn't back out.
"In the Indian community, it's not looked right upon if you back out of an engagement," said Ayyar, who lived in Gilbert.
But Ayyar wasn't prepared for the isolation and abuse that she says followed. She says there was shoving and slapping, and since she wasn't earning much, she was told she didn't have a right to spend her husband's money. Her husband, an engineer, also didn't like her making friends, she said.
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After she says her husband threatened to kill her, she left.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/...
How many more of these stories are played out every day? When will another woman end up like Navneet Kaur?
In the South Asian and Asian/Pacific Islander community in general, domestic abuse is a problem that we must face - not just privately. This is an issue that weakens our community.
"In some small way, we have succeeded in making this a public matter," (Bharati) Sen said. "It's not like, well, this should remain in the family. No, this is a public matter. It's a crime."
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/...
I can not even begin to scratch the surface on the information that has been gathered, the articles that have been written, and the organizations that have been formed to try to bring this issue to the forefront in the South Asian community.
It is my hope that addressing these issues will lead to more women to get help - and for men to realize that it is never OK to be abusive. The issue affects every community. Arizonans. South Asians. Educated professionals and laborers alike. We mustn't keep ignoring the issue as lives literally do hang in the line.
Here are some links to other regional organizations for the South Asian community:
KIRAN links to regional organizations