Rajkot’s anti-dowry protester missing from parent’s home

Two days after after she hit the headlines with a semi-nude protest against what she claimed was harassment for dowry by her husband and in-laws, Pooja Chauhan has moved to an undisclosed location

Two days after after she hit the headlines with a semi-nude protest against what she claimed was harassment for dowry by her husband and in-laws, Pooja Chauhan has moved to an undisclosed location. Police now believe mental stress may have forced her to take the unusual step.

After her protest on Tuesday, Chauhan, 21, had refused to stay at Kanta Stri Vikas Gruh, a home for unsupported women. So the police had given her into the custody of her parents. But on Thursday Pooja moved out of her parents’ home with her three-year-old daughter.

“I don’t know where she has gone,” said her mother Devuben, a ragpicker. She was not present either at her Shastrinagar residence, where she had been living with her daughter for the past 12 months.

Saying it was probably mental stress that forced her to protest in such a manner, Inspector Sardarsinh Jhala of Gandhigram police station said, “The police will initiate procedures for her examination.”

Chauhan’s relatives agree that stress could have made her strip down to her innerwear and parade on Ring Road in the heart of Rajkot on Tuesday. “It seems she was mentally upset possibly because of years of harassment by her husband Pratap and in-laws,” says Devuben, her mother.

“For long she has been complaining about the harassment but I always advised her to be patient.”

This was the second time in two days time that Chauhan had tried to catch the attention of the authorities. On Monday, she poured kerosene all over her body before approaching the Crime Branch to look into her complaints.

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She had been dressed in a salwar-kameez and had her head covered with dupatta. Realising that the police would take action only if a complaint was filed, that day she registered a complaint against her husband and his parents.

“We were taken aback at the protest. There was no reason for it,” said Commissioner of Police K Nityanandam. In fact, on Tuesday morning, almost 10 hours before Chauhan’s semi-nude march, the police had arrested Pratap, his father Rupsinh and sister Hansa.