Srinagar, April 7 -- ByHaziqah Showkat

I sat with my friend last month and heard a story that refuses to leave my mind.

A young woman described an engagement that ended as something closer to a calculated extraction scheme than a failed romance.

The man arrived with elaborate promises of shared futures, solemn commitments, and honourable intentions stretching years ahead.

He pursued her actively through proper channels, proposed formal engagement with family blessings, created visible stability through gatherings.

But behind this careful performance moved intentions entirely divorced from love or partnership.

He isolated her systematically through manufactured conflicts involving his own relatives, cutting her off from external pers...