Harjinder Singh Khurana

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Harjinder Singh Khurana (H.S. Khurana) (born 1940) was raised in Kamo Ki Mandi, now in Pakistan, and his family moved to Amritsar after the partition of India in 1947, which resulted in the division of Khurana's home state, Punjab.

Khurana was a brilliant student and topped the city in Senior Secondary Examinations. He was a gold medalist in Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh.

Khurana started his career with the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) as a Sub-Divisional Officer and retired as Chief Engineer from the same board. He has served the State's electricity board for over 35 years and was promoted a day before his retirement to honour his excellent and honest performance throughout his career, to the post of Engineer-In-Chief, the highest post in the State Electricity Board.

H.S. Khurana has been in controversy regarding his daughter-in-law, Harneet Kaur's death in January 2005. Harneet was married to Khurana's eldest son Kanwarpreet Singh, an architect with his own firm, Ideal Arch, in Amritsar. While Harneet's family alleges that she was killed for dowry, Khurana and his family had been maintaining that she committed suicide and they never asked for any dowry, rather refused dowry that Harneet's family offered before marriage. Khurana, his wife Mukhwant Kaur and his son Kanwarpreet Singh are lodged in Amritsar Central Jail since January 2005 struggling to prove their innocence.

Sources claim that this is just one of those thousands of cases where dowry law is being abused to harass and torture the groom's family including his old parents. According to US Department of State, more than 80% of the accused in dowry cases are acquitted but due to delay , the accused spend about 5 years behind the bars.

Angela Aggeler, a spokesperson for the State Department in Washington, D.C., says that Indian American citizens are often extremely desirable to Indian families with marriageable daughters. Aggeler, who has lived in India, says she empathizes with citizens in this predicament. "I know how complicated the law is in India," she says. Aggeler says the State Department decided to publish the travel warning after receiving information from the three U.S. embassies in India as well as from local law enforcement agencies and global agencies such as Interpol. The U.S. State Department has published advisory to U.S. citizens of Indian origin warning as under: "A number of U.S. citizen men who have come to India to marry Indian nationals have been arrested and charged with crime related to dowry extraction. Many of the charges stem from the U.S. citizen's inability to provide an immigrant visa for the prospective spouse to travel immediately to the United States. The courts sometimes order the U.S. citizen to pay large sums of money to his spouse in exchange for the dismissal of charges."

Canadian Government has also issued following advisory: "Growing numbers of Canadian citizens have been caught up in marital fraud and dowry abuse in India. Most cases involve Indo-Canadian males who abandon their wives in India after cheating them out of large sums of money. Other cases involve misuse of Indians Dowry Prohibition Act. This law, which was enacted to protect women and makes demanding a dowry a crime, is sometimes used to blackmail men through false allegations of dowry extortion. Individuals facing charges may be forced to remain in India until their cases have been settled or pay off their spouses in exchange for the dismissal of charges. To avoid such problems, you are advised to register your marriage in India along with a joint declaration of gifts exchanged, as well as consider a prenuptial agreement.

Additionally, World Health Organization (WHO) report published a report titled 'Abuse on Elders' and mentioned that daughter-in-laws in India were abusing dowry laws when they failed to separate their husbands from his parents and as a result old in-laws are being harassed and tortured by the police. WHO in its 'Missing Voices' report mentions: "In India there is a law that is intended to protect the daughter-in-law from abusive in-laws. A daughter-in-law can go to the police station and lay a complaint that she is being abused by her in-laws, and the in-laws are arrested on her word alone. However the focus group participants reported that some daughters-in- law are using this law as a form of elder abuse, by making false police reports. In general, participants stressed that the lack of caring attitude by daughters-in- law was a major problem. - India"