Police officers Saturday visited the house of a Vidarbha farmer’s widow who recently won Rs.640,000 on quiz show “Kaun Banega Crorepati” (KBC) and had sought Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to save her from her harassing in-laws.
Aparna Malikar, 27, in an affidavit, has asked United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to save her from her in-laws, or else she would commit suicide.
“I came to know about the sad plight of this woman and visited her to get more details,” Inspector Aniruddha Adhav of Pandharkawada Police Station told IANS.
“I have assured her of all help and asked her to lodge a complaint if she faces any more trouble,” he added.
Later, Malikar also received a phone call from Manikrao Thakre, the president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee.
“Thakreji asked me what the problem was and also told me that he will look into the matter and the guilty will be punished,” Malikar told IANS.
In a letter to Gandhi, Malikar narrated how she was subjected to severe mental harassment and injustice after her husband committed suicide in 2008 due to crop failure, leaving behind a huge debt.
“After my husband Sanjay died, I was forced by his brothers to leave the house. They locked the house and threw me and my two daughters out. I built a hut near the farm and have been staying there with my daughters,” Malikar said.
She said her in-laws did not even pay off the Rs.50,000 debt of her late husband. In her letter in Marathi, Malikar urged Gandhi to make a law to protect the rights of farm widows and provide a complete rehabilitation package.
Malikar’s late husband was the younger brother of Nagpur-based Congress leader and former deputy mayor of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation, Raghunath.
“My husband was the official cultivator of the land, but the income was also shared by other brothers Raghunath, Sunil and Raju who didn’t even stay in our village (Varha Kawatha),” Malikar said.
Malikar also accused Raghunath of using his political contacts to turn the case of suicide into a case of culpable homicide against her father and brother.
Source:IANS
