‘Beta, Aunty Ko Batao Ki Papa Tumhari Madam Ke Saath Ghoomte Hain’: Couples Using Children As Tools To Settle Scores With Each Other

Bhopal ( Madhya Pradesh): The five children of a couple have become the tools as well as the victims of a dispute between their parents. The man has filed for divorce in the Bhopal District Family Court but the wife is unwilling to free him from the bonds of marriage. The couple’s marriage is 12 years old and they are parents of three girls and two boys. The eldest, a girl, is 11 whereas the youngest, a boy, is 5.

Both claim that the other one is having an extra-marital affair and is quarrelsome. The wife says that the husband is flirting with the woman teacher of their youngest child and wants a divorce so that he can marry his love. The man says that the wife has a lover with whom she chats over the phone till 3 in the morning. Both of them, however, deny each other’s allegations. The woman says that her husband had even invited the teacher to a birthday party of their son and that he goes missing for 8-10 days in the name of official tours.

The children are being used as tools in the disputes between the two. “Beta, Papa tumhari madam ke saath ghoomte hain na? Aunty ko batao,” the wife asked the little boy in the presence of the counsellor appointed by the court to work out a compromise between them. Both the parents are trying to use the children as witnesses against each other. The counsellor Sindhu Dholpure has told Free Press that no matter what is the fate of the divorce plea, it has already cast a dark shadow on the future of the children.

“The younger two don’t comprehend much but the elder ones are so perturbed by the quarrels and the shouting matches between their parents that they have stopped going to school,” she told Free Press. The 14-year-old son of another couple, who studies in a Sainik School, has also become a tool in the dispute between his parents.

The man is from Kolkata and the woman is from Raipur. Both had married for love in 2009. Their relations soured due to different reasons and the man got married to another woman in 2016 without obtaining a divorce from his wife. The man, who runs a business, is not even paying the maintenance ordered by the court to his wife, pending final judgment in the divorce case between them.

The woman said the counselor Ritu Patwa handling the case, put a call to her son and asked him to talk with the counselor. The child told the counselor, “My papa has done injustice to my mummy.” The woman says that she is running a street-food stall to bring up their son but her husband is not bothered.