HYDERABAD: City police have registered over 3,000 domestic violence cases in the past couple of years. The police say that at least 10 such cases are recorded every month.
Cops have also observed that only 40% of domestic violence cases are severe in nature, while the remaining is recorded after a dispute between the couple.
“The domestic violence cases that are severe in nature are being handled by
Bharosa centre, while other cases are transferred to individual NGOs for counselling. However, due to the several stigmas attached to such crimes, not all severe cases of domestic violence are reported,” said a source from the Bharosa centre.
“We record several domestic violence cases in a month. Dowry is one of the reasons for severe domestic violence. However, many of the cases we have dealt with are due to internal dispute between the couple. Alcohol addiction has been observed as another huge reason for such violence,” said Madhavi L, inspector, women police station.
Similar is the case of 40-year-old Raghav (name changed), a private employee who has been attending counselling for a few months.
“His married life was going fine. But two years ago, he got addicted to alcohol. Whenever he used to get drunk, his nature changed. Soon, he began physically and verbally abusing his 37-year-old wife. He got so much addicted to alcohol that he began skipping work. Soon, he began to run out of money. Gradually, to buy alcohol, he began selling all his wife’s gold jewellery. Now, we are counselling this couple. Alcohol plays a big role in some of the domestic violence cases,” said K Sundeep, a volunteer counsellor,.
He has been handling a few cases of domestic violence and couple dispute cases for five police stations —
Jeedimetla, Jagatgirigutta, Balanagar, Dundigal and
Sanathnagar.
(Representative image)
