Marriage detectives are enjoying a booming trade as a growing number of Indians are turning to Private Investigators to spy on their potential suitors.

“People lie all the time these days. Both boys and girls. It’s risky to trust anyone, ” says 32-year-old Sharda, who has been scouring matrimonial sites in search of her “Jeevan Sathi”.

Spying agencies say that there has been a significant surge in pre-matrimonial investigations, with clients asking a detailed report on the suitor's background, character, sexual history, and finances. All thanks to the matrimonial sites  for the booming 'spy' business, where prospects meet online and family involvement is bare minimum.

"It's not spying, we just wanted to know about my sister's boyfriend before she married him," says Swathi (not her real name). She hired a PI to  testify her now brother-in-law's background. Her sister Alka, met and fell in love with him at work, but Swathi  and her parents wanted to "authenticate" his family's status and finances before they went ahead with the match.

She availed the services of one of Veteran Investigations, a Mumbai-based agency which has been carrying out "pre-matrimonial" checks for more than 40 years. The agency spent nearly a month  to draw up a detailed report of the guy's earnings, family history, past relationships, and finances, among other things.

"He told us he was from a good family, but we needed to ensure he was telling the truth.”

"Earlier in India with arranged marriages which were set up by the family, relatives would know about a partner, but now you don't know if he's married or has children or whatever, so we needed to hire someone to check all this," says Swathi, adding her still-happily-married sister never knew about the detectives.

(AW: Suchorita Dutta Choudhury)