Mujhe Meri Biwi Se Bachao...
Five Mumbai men form NGO, Child's Right and Family Welfare, to protect men who are harassed by their estranged wives
By Deeptiman Tiwary
Posted On Wednesday, January 06, 2010 at 03:18:38 AM
| In August last year, five men whose children were locked in a custody battle had approached the then DGP Maharashtra S S Virk with a representation saying that if they were not given proper access to their children, they would be forced to kidnap them.
Five months on, the group has come a long way towards achieving that goal. The members have not only established an NGO, Child's Right and Family Welfare, but also launched a helpline (8108271975), held seminars, made representations to higher ups in the government and now plan to participate in the January 17 Mumbai Marathon to highlight the issue.
The video that has no sound, shows a woman slapping and kicking 44-year-old Purushottam Mahajan. It later shows them animatedly discussing something even as a child looks on. Mahajan, who claims to have worked with Subhash Ghai as an assistant director, says he shot these video clips through a hidden camera over a period of three months when the couple lived together. Mahajan says the woman in the clipping is his wife and the child is their nine-year-old son. Says Mahajan, "We got married 10 years ago, but the relationship soured within a year. In July 2008, we separated and are now locked in a divorce and custody battle. I had shot these clips in the months preceding our separation as no one would believe when I said I was being beaten up at home. People advised me to collect evidence of the same and so I set a spy camera in the house that ran 24 hours. Later, my wife registered a case of dowry torture against me with Dindoshi police. I even showed the video to police but they have not taken any action against her." Mahajan's wife was not available for comment despite repeated attempts. Sandeep Kedia, president of the NGO, says, "Despite all evidence, law enforcing agencies invariably take the woman's side. The law is biased against men. "I want to ask, aren't the man's mother and sisters women too. They also get harassed when a woman slaps a false dowry complaint against her husband. We want the courts to suo motu prosecute those who lodge false dowry complaints." The Child's Right and Family Welfare organisation is vociferous about atrocities committed by women. A recent power-point presentation made by the NGO in association with Indian Family Foundation shows a young woman slapping a man. The picture is captioned: "You just saw a legally unrecognised domestic violence (sic)." The presentation also compiles detailed data on women arrested for dowry torture as compared to those arrested in other sections of the Indian Penal Code, male suicides in marriages, acquittal rate in dowry cases and various other statistics. It also demands a Commission for Men to be set up by the government for protection of a husband's family members in dowry cases. Another member of the NGO, said, "Every Saturday we hold a meeting near the Bandra Family Court where we help people like us by providing them legal counselling. Every week we receive close to 50 calls from harassed husbands locked in child custody battle. The courts always favour the mother in such cases. The maximum a husband gets is two hours in 15 days to meet his child and that too in court premises. That translates to not more than 48 hours in a year. How is a child ever going to have any affection for his father like this?" Adds Kedia, "It's not fair to the fathers... They are also emotionally attached to their children and too have the right to nurture them. We want that two separated parents be given equal access to the child and that fathers be given the right to take their child home during major festivals. To create awareness we are also participating in the marathon." |
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