Man attacks wife in court over maintenance

Dnyaneshwar had been at loggerheads with Shalan since the last two years, ever since he began to accuse her of showing an interest in other men. According to their daughter Chhaya (14), her father is given to drinking heavily and kept linking her mother other men.

In August last year, Shalan moved out of the house and began to live separately and work as a domestic help. She also moved a local court for maintenance under Sections 126 & 128 of the CrPC, which the court granted. As per the court’s orders, Shalan was to receive Rs 600 from her husband in monthly instalments for herself and three children.

Though Dnyaneshwar would arrive at the court regularly to deposit the sum ordered as maintenance, he had taken it as a personal defeat. “Me kadhi na kadhi tujhi masti utravlya shivai rahanr nahi (I shall straighten you out by hook or by crook),” he had warned her.

But Shalan never took him seriously. Today, as she collected her money and and was completing the paperwork in court, Dnyaneshwar came up from behind and hit her with the sickle on her head. Even as her screams drew a crowd, the onlookers shrank back, afraid to help. On the floor by know, her arms flailing, Shalan raised her left arm to save herself from a second blow. This time, Dnyaneshwar took the skin off her arm from elbow to wrist before he was restrained by two constables. He was immediately arrested and charged under Section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian penal Code.

At Mankoli, where the Malis reside, the neighbours were reluctant to talk fearing that it would lead to “police ka lafda”. Jabeedabi Hussain (35), one of the neighbours, said: “Mali was known for his temper. He did not stop accusing Shalan of adultry. All of us have seen how he would treat her even in public after coming home angry and drunk.”

Remembering how her husband once intervened in a fight, she said: “He wanted to know why my husband had developed such `sympathy’ for his wife and began asking whether he was her yaar. After that, none of us ever intervened.”