The high price of love

Author: Imran Gowhar Date: 24 Mar 2008

Woman, who married for love, now lives in fear of husband who threatens to pour acid on her



In a love marriage gone sour, a man threatened to disfigure his wife’s face with acid if she did not give him her salary.

The woman, who works in a private firm, now lives in constant fear for herself and her young son, and has lodged a police complaint against her husband.

Drunk and jobless

In her complaint, Suvarnalatha said she married C Ajith Singh in 1990 against her parents’ wishes, as he belonged to another caste. She moved in with him at his house in Srirampura. Then the harassment began.

“Ajith was unemployed and he began harassing me. He used to get drunk and demand my salary,” she said in her complaint.

Suvarnalatha said she had to put up with the harassment since she could not ask anyone for help.

“Ajith used to taunt me that despite being married to a girl from Mangalore, he did not get a dowry, and that’s why I should give him my salary,” she told the police.

Survanalatha also told the police that she was forced to buy her husband a Tata Sierra on installments but he sold and pocketed the money.

Greedy and lazy

“He also sold our dining table, a five-seater sofa and a side table and then bought a Tata Indigo with the money. He forced me to sign the loan papers as a guarantor,” she said in her complaint.

“One of our sons died of cancer in 2005 but even that did not change his behaviour towards me or our surviving son,” Suvarnalatha alleged.

Fed up with her husband’s bullying, she shifted to her sister’s house in Vidyaranyapuram with her son.

Dastardly threat

“Ajith has been calling me up and harassing me for money. On Tuesday, he called me up and threatened to throw acid on my face if I did not give him my salary henceforth,” she told the police.

“I fear he will harm me and my son,” she added.

The Srirampura police have taken up a case against Ajith Singh