The Ghatkopar police on Thursday arrested a 55-year-old man for allegedly molesting his 23-year-old daughter-in-law in their residence earlier this week. The man's son - the victim's husband - has also been arrested for assaulting her when she tried to tell him about the incident, while the victim's mother-in-law is now missing.
According to the Ghatkopar police, the arrests were made after the victim registered a complaint against her husband and in-laws on Thursday. The police said that the couple got married on July 17 last year and have a 3-month-old daughter.
The victim, in her complaint, alleged that she had been continually harassed for the last 14 months and that her in-laws never let her meet her parents and also abused her because they did not get any dowry at the time of marriage.
On Wednesday, when the victim's husband was at work while she was working in the kitchen, her father-in-law allegedly started touching her inappropriately.
"The victim said in her statement that when she tried to stop him, he said that he would have to bear with the assault as she had not got any dowry. The victim later went to her mother-in-law, who said the same and added that her son would only listen to her and not to the victim. The mother further threatened to get her son to divorce the victim," said an officer with the Ghatkopar police station.
When the victim's husband returned from work, subsequently, the victim tried to tell him what had happened. The husband, however, did not believe her and instead assaulted her. The injured victim managed to escape and approached patrolling policemen. They took her to the Rajawadi Hospital, where she was treated for her injuries, and then recorded a statement, based on which the FIR was registered.
"As soon as we received the complaint, we arrested the husband and father-in-law from their residence, but the mother-in-law was nowhere to be seen. We suspect that she may have run away after she learned that the victim had approached us," said senior police inspector Sanjay Dahake, Ghatkopar police station.
The absconding mother-in-law is suspected to have sought refuge at her relative's place and teams have been sent to multiple locations to confirm this. The police have booked all the three accused for assault against the victim, voluntarily causing hurt, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace and criminal intimidation under the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
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