Two held in jeweller family spat

KOLKATA: A leading jeweller family in southeast Kolkata has been thrown into a major turmoil by the estranged wife of a family scion amid an ongoing separation case. The woman has brought charges of domestic violence and sexual abuse against her husband and his brother.


The brothers were arrested late on Thursday evening, hours after the victim alleged that her brotherin-law had raped her multiple times, saying that wife swapping was their “family tradition”. The FIR also named the parents of the two arrested persons and the sister-in-law of the scion.

The victim hailing from south Kolkata also alleged that apart from dowry demands, she was also asked to have unnatural sex for days with her husband. Her in-laws, she claimed, had even snatched all her ornaments (stree-dhan) and misbehaved with her. The FIR has been filed almost 13 years after her marriage.

The jeweller family, though, claimed it was a “pressure tactic” to ensure that the divorce case filed by the victim got stronger. “These are a set of lies to try and defame the family in an attempt to settle the divorce case in her favour at a critical time within the family,” said a family loyalist on condition of anonymity.

Their lawyers at the local court on Friday argued that the charges were concocted and claimed the victim had not been living in the accused’s residence for the past seven months. They also submitted some social media interactions the woman allegedly had “with her friends” to substantiate their point.

The public prosecutor highlighted that they were investigating the serious charges and that they needed to recreate the chain of events and needed police custody of the accused. After hearing the two sides, the court sent the accused to police custody.

Meanwhile, the cops, who reached the apartment of the accused, alleged they were manhandled and assaulted by them and their family members. A separate case has been started against the accused in this matter.

The police claimed that the woman approached the police on Thursday seeking police action against both her husband and brother-in-law.

“She claimed repeatedly that she was told that it was the practice within family to exchange wives among the brothers. She claimed she was repeatedly raped on this pretext. We immediately drew up an FIR under several sections pertaining to dowry harassment (IPC 498A), criminal breach of trust (IPC 406), voluntarily causing hurt (IPC 323), rape (IPC 376), carnal intercourse (377) and that the abettor present when offence was committed (IPC 114) after going through the evidence and making preliminary inquiries,” a senior investigator said.

“When we went to their residence to carry out the required arrest, their family members resisted vehemently and struck at the arresting party. Hence another case pertaining to IPC 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty) has been started against the accused persons in this regard,” added the investigating officer.