Men allege reverse dowry harassment
Some NGOs and organisations of married men who are ostensibly facing harassment from their wives under dowry laws have called for setting up a separate ministry for the welfare of men and a National Commission for Men for their voices to be heard.
Claiming that married Indian men were facing reverse dowry harassment at the hands of their wives, representatives of Save Indian Family Foundation, an association that claims to fight for the cause of the Indian men, say that dowry harassment cases had led to more suicides by married men compared to married women in recent years.
Quoting statistics from the National crime Records Bureau, the representatives of the Foundation claimed here that 22,000 Indian men had committed suicide due to dowry law harassment as compared to about 6,800 married women in recent years.
A Foundation spokesman claimed that nearly 7,000 Indian husbands were hauled into jails without investigation after their wives filed cases under the dowry law and 68 per cent of them were later found to be innocent.
“There have been many cases where all family members of married men have been jailed on the basis of false dowry complaints,” said Vikas Kapur, coordinator of the Foundation on the occasion of International Men’s Day on Thursday.
Seeking changes in the ‘pro-women’ laws, the Foundation claimed that women were misusing section 498-A dealing with dowry and the Domestic Violence Act to ‘extort money’ from their husbands and family members.
