As you read this article, Sabitri, a 21 year old woman in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad city, has most probably succumbed to the unbearable pain caused by the injuries in her private parts given to her by the same man who happens to be the father of her 2 month old son — her husband — Sannimar Munda, a labourer.
Theirs was an arranged marriage. They had tied the knot in 2007 and had been living a normal life together. But it only takes a moment to change the course of life and so, it was a moment’s fury over a small quarrel between the husband and wife that changed everything for everyone related to it —Â the husband, the wife and the 2 month old son.
According to the news published in Times of India on 14th of May, it so appears that — Sannimar Munda stitched the private parts of his wife — Sabitri — with wire after her request to visit her parents infuriated him.
Munda became angry when she said that she wanted to go to her parents’ home. He then charged her with having an extra-marital relationship.
Their quarrel took an inhuman turn when Munda tied her hands and legs and also gagged her by putting clothes in her mouth and started stitching her private parts with ‘steel wire’ (used for tightening fences and plaster bases created by iron rods). Still not satisfied by his horrible act, he then locked her up in a room and went out.
This is just one real life case of the atrocities that have been pouring upon the women in our civilised society in every part, corner and centre of today’s ‘raising’ India.
Whatever happened to uprightness!
According to the survey report of National Family health Survey-3 (NFHS-3) more than 35 percent of women have experienced physical or sexual violence. And this figure (35%) transforms into millions of women who have suffered, and continue to endure the atrocities, at the hands of their husbands and other family members.
And it’s not just the married women who are under constant fear and live at the so called ‘kindnesses’ of their ‘man’ but also the never married ones, who endure both — physical and sexual violence.
What is even worse is that most of those women do not even speak up or seek help when they are abused, and to top it all, a majority of women (54% to be precise) and men (51%) from our sensible society say that a husband is very much justified in beating his wife.
Sense, it seems, has been stitched and locked inside a coffin to suffer and die (Just like our Sabitri).
Sabitri later managed to escape from the room and somehow reached her parents’ house. Her parents then took her to the ‘Patliputra Medical College and Hospital’ in Dhanbad and later logged a complaint against Munda. Police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) against him on charges including attempt to murder, he has been absconding since then.
But who is going to help escape the “stitched and locked up sense” from the coffin and lodge a complaint against the millions and millions who are responsible for its miserable state along with tortured women of our society?
Who?
Below is a small list of acts which falls under the category of Physical, Sexual and Emotional Violence against Women:
Physical Violence: Pushing, Shaking, Throwing something at her, Slapping, Arm twisting, Hair Pulling, Punching, Kicking, Dragging, Beating, Trying to choke or burn her on purpose, and threatening her or attacking her with a weapon.
Sexual Violence: Physically forcing the wife against her will to have sex or perform other sexual acts that she did not want to perform.
Emotional Violence: Saying or doing something to humiliate her in front of others, threatening to hurt or harm her or someone close to her, Insulting her or making her feel bad about herself.
If there is better sense prevailing, if the youth has the power to change things, then why not act now?
I would like to know your views in the comments box below or drop us an email at editor@youthkiawaaz.com.
The writer is a correspondent of Youth Ki Awaaz