The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : NRI's parents held on dowry harassment charge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 30, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

NRI's parents held on dowry harassment charge

Staff Reporter

Complainant alleges torture by engineer husband

CHENNAI: The anti-dowry cell of the city police on Thursday arrested the parents of a software engineer settled in the United States on charges of dowry harassment.

Acting on a complaint lodged with the Ashok Nagar Police Station, the police took into custody Swaminathan and Sivagamasundari (alias Raji) of Thiruvanmiyur. The complaint filed by Latha (27) stated that she was emotionally tortured and beaten up by her husband Sivaprasad, who demanded dowry. She has since returned from the U.S. with her nine-month-old daughter and is now residing in Chennai.

The police are planning to move the court to extradite Sivaprasad, said M. Iqbal, assistant commissioner of the cell.

According to Latha, the physical abuse began on the day of her wedding in 2002. It continued even in the U.S. Twice she fled to the house of a neighbour, Abdul Jabbar, a Tamil scientist.

"When my baby was two months old, my husband verbally abused my mother who had come to stay with us and hit me repeatedly," Ms. Latha says. That is when she called the police at Atlanta and got a six-month protective order that prevented Sivaprasad from visiting or meeting her.

Latha came back to Thanjavur, her native place, in November last. An engineer, she says: "I would tell young women getting married and going to the U.S to have their own bank accounts, so that they can be independent." Police have registered a case of dowry harassment under Section 498 A (Husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and under the Dowry Prohibition Act.

Police say that when Latha came to India her jaw was disfigured and she required medical attention.

The arrested woman denied all the allegations, while her husband told them that their son would turn a new leaf, police said.

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