Daughter-in- law accuses Dasari of dowry harassment

HYDERABAD: Twenty-nine-year-old Susheela is complaining that her in-laws are harassing her for dowry and the police won’t act on her complaint. Nothing unusual in India, except that Susheela’s father-in-law is Union minister of state for coal and well-known film producer Dasari Narayana Rao.

On Tuesday, Susheela called a press conference and threatened to go on a hunger strike if the matter was not sorted out. “Officers at the women protection cell say that they cannot take action because a minister is involved,” she alleged.

Susheela, who had brought her son Dasari Narayana Rao also to the press meet, said that her in-laws and husband Taraka Hari Hara Prabhu (34) had thrown her out of their home and further alleged that the plan was to get her husband married off once again.
The couple have a 10-year-old son and they married for love. The two had met at a computer institute in Chennai. The husband is presently unemployed.

Susheela told press persons that there were differences between her and her in-laws ever since she was married but she lodged a complaint against them when the harassment peaked last year.

“My husband began harassing me for more dowry last June, and it was then that I moved the women’s protection cell against him and his parents,” she said.

“By then, my husband had spent the two lakhs that I had given him. I said that I could not give him anymore money. To this he said that he wanted a divorce,” Susheela told newspersons.

According to Susheela after repeated visits to the police station, a compromise was reached between the couple in August last year. The compromise was orally discussed in front of an additional commissioner of police, she said.

An undertaking was signed by her husband that Susheela would be given two flats, one which she could own and the other to be rented out to earn her maintenance. ” I agreed to this”, Susheela said.

Since then her husband has been shuttling between her and her in-laws houses. Susheela was given a separate house in Punjagutta, the rent being paid by her in-laws.

But Susheela claimed that since the past week, her husband and in-laws have been harassing her for dowry and are unwilling to pay the rent. “They are asking me to vacate,” Susheela said.

Deputy commissioner of police, central crimes, T V Shashidhar Reddy said: “The case is under investigation and does not appear to be a simple case of harassment”. He added : “The allegations have to be verified. The husband is ill and mentally not stable.”

Dasari was not available for comments. His Delhi office said he was away for a meeting and would not be available till Wednesday. However, the minister’s cousin K Ramkrishna Prasad suo motu called up TOI and said that: “The boy is very ill. We don’t know where he is. Even the minister doesn’t know about his whereabouts.”

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