HYDERABAD: Ego clashes are the prime reasons for 70 per cent of divorces in the city, according to officials of the woman police station (WPS) that deals with marital disputes in three out of five zones in the state capital.
The WPS gets over 220 cases daily, 70 per cent of which are said to be due to gender-based intolerance. The police officials revealed that during counselling, most of these cases turn out to be the result of egoism amongst employed couples belonging to higher middle class and middle class families.
A complainant, G. Anita (name changed) who works with a multi-national company, revealed that her husband kept her credit cards with him, linked ATM cards with his mobile number and did not even reveal the UPI number. “He spends my hard-earned money and when I question, he says he is the head of the family,” Anita said.
“We deal with Section 498 (A) cases, cases between employed couples where husbands dominate wives or vice versa for simple reasons that can be resolved by themselves. Sadly, such cases are drastically increasing,” a senior WPS official said.
“Still we counsel them. In most of the cases, the woman’s in-laws do not respect her. They expect her to do household work though they can easily afford a domestic help,” the officer said.
This year till April 27, the WPS received 1,007 complaints. Of them, 382 dowry harassment cases under Section 498 (A) were booked whereas a majority of 685 cases, according to senior physiologists of WPS, were due to ego clashes, lack of gender sensitisation and jealousy.
“I counsel hundreds of men and women in 95 per cent of cases on a daily basis. Most of the men allege that their egos get hurt as the wife earns and does not take household responsibility. We do our best to unite them, but most of them get separated. Times have changed. Men should respect women and together they should divide work and not get separated for reasons that can be resolved,” one of the counsellors at the WPS said.
“Our team is the best. We have excellent counsellors who deal with the Dowry Prevention Act (DPA). We have an assistant commissioner of police (ACP), five inspectors, 11 sub-inspectors and 31 constables who cover the west, the east and the central zones of the city,” A. Madhavi Latha, a 1996 batch WPS inspector said.
