Rajwinder Kaur Fled Arranged Marriage, Found in Texas

Well, it looks like 26-year-old Rajwinder Kaur wasn't harmed after all, which makes it easier to speculate upon the idea that her entire disappearance was plotted. The missing woman was located in Texas on Thursday after allegedly taking a bus from New York on Sunday night. This comes after she sold her belongings on Ebay and then vanished while on the way to volunteer at a homeless shelter.

So what about that ominous text, "The girl with this phone is dead was smiling," that had people worried about her? It truly does appear that this was a hoax, and it's not in the least bit surprising. Rajwinder Kaur took a page right out of the Aisha Khan playbook—another very high-profile missing woman who faked an abduction to get away for unknown reasons. However, in the story of Aisha Khan, the 19-year-old was already married and was likely trying to escape the fundamentalist holds of her environment, enjoying the life of an American woman with freedom. While the differences between the Muslim and Sikh cultures are arguable/debatable, one thing is certain: arranged marriages are the norm, and it's not unlikely for someone to rebel against this tradition.

Well the reason for Rajwinder's disappearance, again, was not surprising. She was fleeing from an arranged marriage! Her family made this seem like a huge surprise, but did they not think to mention that they were putting her into a situation in which she was not willing to be? What's sad is that a family member has arranged to meet her in Texas, where she will most likely be brought back into the very family environment that caused her to flee. Nonetheless, her family is denying the claims of there being a planned wedding, but it doesn't seem like they are being very truthful as media sources allude to the possibility that the missing woman admitted to such.

This case was covered in hink from the beginning, and some people even fought tooth-and-nail to keep the possibilities of this woman's planned disappearance out of the media spotlight. Well, the truth can't be hidden forever, and it's just a relief that this missing woman found herself in a place that was safe instead of the alternative ideas of abduction or joining a cult.

If claims of an arranged marriage are true, then this young woman must understand that in the United States of America, you cannot be forced to wed anybody you do not want to marry. There are plenty of resources available to Rajwinder who can seek help from the government to be placed in a safe house to avoid those who want to push her into marital slavery against her will. She seems like a very nice person and regardless of the elements at play, she deserves to be treated like a human being and not livestock.

Crime analyst and profiler Chelsea Hoffman can be found on The Huffington Post, Chelsea Hoffman: Case to Case and many other outlets. Follow @TheRealChelseaH on Twitter or click here to contact Chelsea directly.

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