Hyderabad: Petty rows cause half of divorces

Hyderabad: Money-sucking scammers, chronic alcoholics, adulterers and violent men wreck the lives of many young women here within years of their marriage. Analyses of a thousand cases reported to women police stations across the city showed urban marriages being wrecked by troubles such as adultery, alcohol consumption, extortion and dowry within very short periods.

Police officials say it’s easy to fix marital problems of under-educated couples through continuous counselling but this is a dead duck for the elite – the educated and wealthy couples.

Data showed 35 per cent of the total marital dispute cases were reported within two years of marriage, while 50 per cent of women complainants approached police after the first five year of their marriage.

Many young women suffered years of agony because of never-ending abuses from their alcoholic husbands. Data shows that close to 15 per cent of the complainants wanted to get rid of their drunk husbands, as these men wasted money by drinking regularly and turned violent at nights. Most women were concerned about their kids’ safety because of their inebriated husband’s violent nature. Police data shows more than 30 per cent of the cases related to dowry harassment, which is an ever-growing issue.

This apart, there are also trivial issues first leading to broken marriages, and then to police cases. “There are cases of men harassing women for petty matters. We received some cases in which husbands harassed wives for silly issues like the taste of the food she cooked was not so great. Some couples who approached us could never sort out their differences in food preferences leading to quarrels even after three years of marriage,” said Janakamma Pagidipati, Inspector from Begumpet Women Police station.

“Some couples end up filing cases over food choices. For instance, a wife could be vegetarian, and she cannot adjust to the husband’s non-veg habits,” she said.

Counselling to precede divorce
As per Supreme Court guidelines, couples have to undergo three counselling sessions before moving a marital dispute case to court. Hyderabad police takes the services of non-governmental organisations for these counselling. Many cases have been resolved without any court involvement.

“In South Zone, we solve a majority of the cases through counselling. Before filing an FIR, we call both parties and make them undergo professional counselling. Earlier, many petty issues used to become makor ones which would then end up in courts. Things have changed for the better now,” said DCP of North Zone B. Sumathi.

In North Zone, more than 70 per cent of the cases are solved through counselling, and this rate is the highest-ever, cops say.

Big lies to lure innocent brides
Radha worked and lived in the US for some years. At 32, after a long search for a groom, she entered into wedlock and took the man to the US hoping for a happy life thereafter. Within a few days, however, the husband went missing along with $30,000 of Radha’s money.

Radha (not her original name) and her family, on investigation, found that her husband, 40-year-old K. Venkat Ratna Reddy, was a notorious criminal who married the woman to fleece her. Reddy had earlier cheated a film producer posing to be an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer. A native of Guntur, Reddy was also involved in bank robbery, immoral trafficking and theft cases and was a fugitive.

Police officials say lack of proper checks often led to disastrous situations with men faking their job profiles and family background and then extorting mo-ney from the woman.

“There are at least 35 such cases pending in our police stations. Some marry for  dowry,” said Janakam-ma, Inspector of Women Police Station.

In one case, a man and woman fell in love and got married. The husband quit his job and started taking money from his father-in-law in the name of running a business. He took over '40 lakh, by when they realised that he had  married another woman.

“In urban society, it is not easy to verify the background of a groom. But, this is extremely important,” said a senior marriage counsellor in the city.