KENDRAPARA, Oct. 1: With the anti-dowry law, allegedly favouring women, which is resulting in its gross misuse, husbands who are at the receiving end of persecution and torture, meted out to them by their spouses, have started crying foul.

The distressed husbands who are being pushed to the wall have started seeking the state women’s commission to intervene in their lives and save them from their wives.
As many as 19 cases of battered husbands have reached the doorsteps of the state women’s commission.

Most of these domestic complaints were taken up for investigation by the police with the SCW refusing to take up and address the plight of the tormented husbands, according to the social welfare wing of the district administration.   

If the social welfare wing of local administration is to be believed, the victims moved to the state women’s commission, seeking punishment against their vicious wives.  
Among the husbands, who are at the receiving ends of mental and physical abuse, a person named Dilip Kumar Kar said that his wife constantly ill- treats him and his family.
“She prefers to stay with her parents,” Mr Kar added.

Another fortytwo-year-old man from the minority community had alleged that he was driven out from his house by his wife.

At present, he is living all alone in a rented house in Golarhat under the Derabish block.
To add to this, there have been instances of flagrant abuse of the anti-dowry law in compliance with parents or guardians. 

Last month a so-called dead woman had become alive, but not before police had arrested her in-laws on charges of cooking up a dowry-related murder story and had put them behind the bars. 

Ironically, the spouse and in-laws of the above mentioned woman have already spent nearly a month in the prison.

The police are now on the move to repair the damage done to the man and his family.At the same time, the police have taken steps to book the woman and her family members for filing false complaints.