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The statistics on domestic violence around the world are another shameful addition to the list of crimes against women. It sometimes takes years for victims to muster the courage to speak up against their husbands. Whereas there are also those who suffer in silence for the rest of their lives. However, this Pune woman refused to resign to her fate.

Her terrible ordeal began when she got married to an IT professional in 2008. Her husband displayed violent behaviour from the start; he would get offended with little things and beat her up in rage.

During one of such episodes, the husband got so angry that he threw his dumbbells at her computer. Later that night, he beat her unconscious. But his rage was not satiated.

He dragged her under a tap, the water jolting her back to her senses. And then, he abused her again.

As if the woman’s situation couldn’t get any worse, in 2010, the husband found a new way to torture his wife. He asked her to maintain an Excel sheet of every single chore she performed in the day!

And that wasn’t it. She had to even maintain a record of the same in a notebook, and keep it updated with the status of each task: completed or pending. The status has to be colour-coded, and if the task wasn’t completed within the deadline (yes, a DEADLINE), then a separate column citing the reason for this was to be filled!

The woman had to read out this record to her husband every day at a specific time and show him the list every week. If she didn’t, guess what would happen? Another bout of violence.

Even the basic household chore of cooking food had to undergo the cruel husband’s scrutiny, right up to the diameter of the chapatis!

The wife had to prepare breakfast as per a specific menu. And believe it or not, the husband went berserk with his rigid rules for preparing rotis!

According to Pune Mirror, the woman described the whole procedure she had to follow.

“While preparing chapattis, I had to ensure that the diameter was exactly 20 cm — my husband would measure it every day. When it came to getting the wheat ground, ever detail regarding the quantity of the grain, its rate, where it was purchased from and the last date of grinding had to be mentioned.”

And if this wasn’t enough, there were other weird rules in place that had to be followed or else….

If the woman wanted to meet or speak with her husband, she had to put in a written email request and would then be allotted a designated time for it.

“My life became a misery. Even for basic chores I was forced to follow a protocol. He abused me in every way possible and forced me into unnatural sex against my will.”

Probably the last straw for her was when her husband began extending his abuse to their daughter as well.

In her petition to the court, she mentioned how he would mentally abuse her.

“Once he got so angry that he got a knife from the kitchen and started chasing our daughter, threatening to kill her. He would often threaten to commit suicide if I did not do as he said. Another time, he poured water on me and made me sleep in an air-conditioned room while I was drenched. He even held our daughter over the balcony railings and threatened to throw her down.”

The woman, tired of all the torture, has finally sought divorce from her husband, and even filed a domestic violence case against him and her in-laws before the Judicial Magistrate First Class.

The husband, when contacted by media, has refused to make any comment.

Considering the amount of courage it must have taken her to take such a step, here’s hoping that she is liberated from the living hell she has been in for a decade, and apt action is taking against the perpetrator.