Cops get contempt note for marriage made on web

Family accused of dowry harassment arrested despite court's verbal order

Cops get contempt note for marriage made on web

Family accused of dowry harassment arrested despite court's verbal order

A high flying bank executive finds his bride on the Internet, marries her, differences surface and the girl lodges a dowry harassment complaint, the matter comes up before the court and four cops are facing contempt charges.

The officers are accused of arresting a family, having a dowry harassment case pending against them, despite a verbal court order to the contrary.

The cops arrested Meena Sen (mother-in-law) from a school, Ramesh Chandra Sen (father-in-law) from his office and Deepak (groom) from Jodhpur in separate raids. The trio had to spend a night in Tihar Jail and was sent to judicial custody. The next day, October 12, they were sent to mediation centre for settling the matter amicably.

However, counsel for the Sen family approached the court contending that they were arrested in direct contravention of the verbal order passed by Additional Sessions Judge Pratibha Rani.

Damini with mother-in-law Meena Sen in happier times

The judge had declined anticipatory bail to the three accused in the dowry harassment case but directed the cops "the accused will not be arrested during the pendency of conciliation proceedings and till final decision on the pending anticipatory bail application of the accused person." Deepak, a resident of Jodhpur, married Damini Chawla of Tilak Nagar, west Delhi, on November 25, 2007. Deepak, an executive with Standard Chartered bank in Dubai, found his match on the popular marriage portal shaadi.com. After being together for more than year and a half, differences surface between the couple and Damini lodged dowry harassment against her in-laws at the Tilak Nagar police station on June 4, 2009.

Deepak alleged that Damini married him for money and property, as everything was fine till he was earning in five figures. "The problem started when I lost my job and had to return to my parental house in Jodhpur."

Deepak alleged that Damini pressurized him to invest in a showroom planned by his father in Tilak Nagar and he gave in to her demands.

"I invested everything I had to construct the showroom," he told MiD DAY.

"But Damini's family kept asking me to sell my property and invest all the money in their venture. When I started refusing their attitudes changed and differences developed between us," he said.

Deepak alleged that his sister could not go abroad, as even she has been made an accused in the case.

Liar liar
Damini rejected the charges made by Deepak as "baseless and aimed at maligning her image".

According to her, Deepak did not have a job in Dubai as when she went there with him he had already "quit" his job. "He returned to India and started living with my parents. He also started torturing me physically and mentally. He did not invest even a penny in any showroom. In fact, I gave all the money to construct my father's office in Delhi.

What cops say
"We did nothing wrong and we did not disobeyed any order of the court. They were arrested and presented in front of court from where they were sent to judicial custody."
Sharad Aggarwal, DCP (west district)

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