A woman has opened up about how her husband scammed her parents out of ₹63 lakh under the guise of taking an education loan. Gunjan Rathore, a chartered accountant by profession, shared her story with Humans of Bombay.
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Rathore, a victim of domestic abuse, said that she met her husband through a matrimonial site. He worked as a chartered accountant too, and on paper, it looked like the perfect match.
“At 26, I was a CA running two ventures, financially secure, and ready to settle down. When I met him through a matrimony site, a fellow CA, it felt like a compatible match. I didn’t realize I was walking straight into an extortion scheme,” she told Humans of Bombay.
Rathore said that very early on, there were red flags that she and her family chose to ignore. For starters, just one month before the wedding, the groom and his family began demanding a dowry. They wanted a car, ₹5 lakh in cash, and silver coins as gifts for all their relatives.
“I stood my ground and refused to pay for the car and cash but we still gave gifts to the relatives. Despite the chaos, we went ahead with the wedding, hoping everything would settle,” she said.
The CA said that her family agreed to the demand of silver coins and the wedding went ahead. However, the real trouble began soon afterwards.
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“But then came the biggest fraud: a fake plan to move to the UK,” Rathore recalled.
She explained that a few months after their marriage, she and her husband began to apply to universities abroad. They both got into the University of Liverpool in the UK for a master’s programme.
“I was excited for our new start,” the CA said. Instead, she received a rude shock.
Then, three days before they were due to fly to the UK, Rathore’s husband disappeared overnight. When he came back, he damaged his passport intentionally so he could not fly out of India.
Rathore said her husband then revealed that he never intended to study in the UK. Instead, he planned to keep the money from the loan for himself.
“Three days before our flight, he disappeared overnight, and came back only to tear the visa page right out of his passport. He said, I’m not going and kept every rupee for himself, leaving my 65-year-old retired father in tears, breaking his lifelong FDs just to pay off the loan interest,” she said.
“Maine tumhare papa ka paisa khaya, Try and get it back if you can,” her husband told her.
Soon, the financial fraud turned into physical abuse.
“His uncle would tell him, ‘Mard hai to wife ko pitna bhi chahiye’ he began slapping me, pulling my hair. He would say, ‘Kisiko bhi bata, there are no marks, kya proof dikhayegi?.’ Once, during my period he punched me in the abdomen,” Rathore revealed.
The breaking point came when her husband told her that he only wanted her for physical needs.
“When I started questioning him then came the breaking point, he looked me in the eye and said he is only with me for his physical needs. That night, the victim in me died. I walked out, filed an FIR, and had him arrested,” Rathore said.
Match Outlook
However, her husband soon got bail after only a few days in jail. Today, his family is already looking for his next marriage, while Rathor is left to rebuild her life alone.
But she has not given up hope.
“In the last 2 years, I lost almost everything, but I still have my work, my strength, and my self-respect. I built my career from scratch once, and If I’ve to, I will do,” she concluded.
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According to her, her husband convinced her to take a ₹50 lakh loan for his education, pretending that his own family had broken ties with him.
“He convinced me to take a 50 lakh education loan in my name and tricked my mother into giving him 13 lakhs for his visa. He pretended that his father wasn’t supporting him financially and because of that he broke every tie with him. We believed him and funded the entire trip,” she said.
