Engineer brutalizes wife on road

Hundreds of people rubbed their eyes in disbelief as a 29-year-old marine engineer, earning a monthly salary of Rs 1.8 lakh, dragged his 24-year-old engineer wife by hair on the Warisaliganj-Nawada main road in Bihar and kicked and punched her relentlessly. Even as fisticuffs rained on her, the woman kept trying to save her six-month-old daughter in her lap — till she fell unconscious right on the road.

The ugly drama at the Manjaurs Pasi village did not end even then. When trainee DSP Satish Kumar, accompanied by other cops, arrived at the scene following a tip-off, the marine engineer pompously questioned their authority to “interfere in my family matter”. “Aap ki himmat kaise hui yahan aane ki (How dare you come here)?” he asked.

However, as the cops acted tough, Rakesh Kumar who is posted as Section Officer II on a private cargo ship Kaveri, attempted to flee in his wife’s car, but was overpowered after a hot chase.

Rakesh’s father, Parmeshwar Choudhary, a government school teacher, tried to bribe the cops at the police station by displaying thick wads of currency notes which, he said, totalled Rs 2 lakh. Parmeshwar was also arrested.

Rakesh’s wife Poonam later lodged an FIR at the Warisaliganj police station against her husband and in-laws. She said she married Rakesh in 2005 despite her family’s opposition. She had then just finished her diploma in electrical engineering while her husband was undergoing marine training in Mumbai.

She said she was a victim of regular brutality ever since her marriage, but passively tolerated it in the hope that her husband would reform himself. Her husband, according to her, was a compulsive boozer and blew his entire income on alcohol.

Whenever he came home on leave, he used to brutally assault her in front of her in-laws for not bringing adequate dowry, she said. “Even animals are not beaten so cruelly,” she added, tears rolling down her cheeks.

An engineer with BSNL currently posted in Ranchi, Poonam said she has filed a divorce petition in the Ranchi civil court as her frail body could no longer endure such brutality at the hands of her husband. “I would bring up my daughter single-handedly and would never let her evil father’s shadow fall on her,” she said.

Meanwhile, the father-son duo were forwarded to judicial custody.link