suicide

Chandan Nagar police

Indian Penal Code

Allegedly frustrated by her techie husband’s harassment for dowry and taunts about her looks, a 27-year-old woman committedby hanging herself in Kharadi on Sunday.said the deceased, Madhusmita Mahapatra, was a resident of Ganesh Park in Chowdhary Vasti, Kharadi. On Wednesday, cops arrested her husband Sushant Panda (30), a computer engineer who works with a city-based company in the IT sector. A complaint in this case was filed by the father of the deceased, Dushashan Mahapatra (52), earlier this week.The couple got married around 1.5 years ago, preceding which Madhusmita used to work at the NGO Ruchira Childline in Odisha’s Bhubaneswar. Police said the husband did not allow her to work after their move here. The couple and Sushant’s parents had shifted to Pune in October 2018, and after 2.5 months or so, the in-laws went back to Bhubaneswar. Soon, Madhusmita also left for her native place, and stayed for two months over this year with her own parents, resuming the job at her old place of work.A few weeks ago, Sushant issued an ultimatum to Madhusmita, saying she needs to resign and come back to Pune in five days, or face a divorce. On September 2 this year, Madhusmita moved back to Pune, after which it has been alleged that he did not give her food properly and misbehaved with her. According to cops, the couple fought many times in the last few months, and according to the FIR, Sushant frequently told his wife she is ugly, and that he would have gotten a grand dowry with more prizes if he had married any other girl.On the day of the suicide, Sushant had called Madhusmita’s parents to say she had locked him in a room and is refusing to take his calls. Shortly thereafter, her parents got a call saying she is dead.Police inspector Shankar Khatke of Chandan Nagar PS elaborated, “The couple had retired to the bedroom the previous night, but in the morning, Sushant found himself locked in. When he tried to call Madhusmita’s mobile phone, she did not pick up. He then called her parents and also called for help from neighbours, who broke the door of the house down, as well as that of the room Madhusmita had locked herself in. There, they found her hanging, and immediately called police. We reached the spot and sent the body to the hospital for a post-mortem. A case was registered as well under sections 498A (husband, in-laws harassing a woman) and 306 (abetment of suicide) of the(IPC).”