Indian brother and sister ‘married’ to get visas for Australia

A girl from an Indian village ‘married’ her brother, who then came to Australia on a spousal visa.

Police in one of the largest vill­ages in the Indian state of Punjab are investigating a series of immigration scams, including one case where a brother and sister were “married” to each other to secure visas for Australia.

Six people have been questioned by police; arrests are ­expected.

Indian newspapers have laid blame for the scams on the ­“passion and madness” of Punjabi youth to “live in a foreign land”.

Inspector Jai Singh told The Australian through an interpreter that he knew of one girl from the village of Balianwali who was “married” to her brother, who then came to Australia on a spousal visa.

Immigration authorities were asked to approve documents that belonged to the couple’s female cousin, who had an Australian visa. “With those forged documents, they (brother and sister) married and the marriage has been registered in court,” Mr Singh said.

“They have cheated the social system, legal system and religious systems, all for the craze, wish and desire to go abroad. We are conducting raids but they are on the run and we have not been able to arrest anyone.”

He said he had heard of “scams happening by people who want to go abroad, but something like this, a brother and sister marrying, is a first, and now it has come in front of our eyes we are all surprised and shocked”.

Police say they have “registered a case against six persons”.

After the couple were married, they travelled to Australia to become husband and wife on the basis of fake passports and falsified documents.

From January 2000, a total of 291,916 Indian-born migrants moved to Australia, and the program is considered a success. More than half of all Indians who came to Australia between 2000 and 2016 are buying their own homes, according to ABS statistics released last year, and about half have become citizens.

The vast majority (234,395) came on skilled visas, while 56,000 arrived on family visas.

However, there is growing concern about sham marriages, particularly in Punjab, where men have been accused of targeting young women who get high marks in the International English Language Testing Systems (IELTS) exam. Known as IELTS brides, these women are able to get student visas to Australia, and a fake marriage allows their husband to get a dowry from their family and travel to Australia ahead of them. The husband is never heard of again, leaving the bride’s family out of pocket from paying the dowry, and the bride with no support.

The Victorian parliament last year passed the Family Violence Protection and Other Matters Bill 2018, which bans “using coercion, threats, physical abuse or emotional or psychological abuse to demand or receive a dowry, ­either before or after a marriage”.

A spokesperson for the Home Affairs Department said “sham marriages … are willingly entered into by both parties for fraudulent purposes, for example to obtain an Australian visa. All identity documentation provided with visa applications is thoroughly checked … and, where necessary, verified with relevant authorities in the issuing country.

“But the department has no control over genuine passports issued by foreign governments which may have been issued based on fraudulent documents.”

An applicant who provides false identity documents as part of an application cannot be granted a visa for 10 years.