DEHRADUN: In a shocking case of domestic violence in Dehradun’s Selaqui area, a 32-year-old married woman was allegedly locked in a toilet for 10 months and brutally assaulted by in-laws including attacks on her private parts with bottles and sticks after just a year of her marriage to a teacher posted in a Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) in Delhi. The incident came into light after the father of the woman, a retired Havildar from the Indian Army with a service of 33 years, lodged a police complaint at the city’s Selaqui police station on Monday evening after rescuing her daughter from her in-laws’ place on May 26. Speaking to TOI, her father alleged that the ‘inhuman treatment’ of her daughter started soon after she gave birth to twins in Feb last year. TOI has withheld the identities of the woman and her family members due to sensitivity of the case including allegations of physical assault on private parts. “My daughter was married in 2024 to the KV teacher who was the only child of his parents. It was an arranged marriage through a mediator. Initially after seeing the family, we thought it’s a nice one. That notion shattered just after a few months of the marriage as my daughter’s mother-in-law started harassing her for unknown reasons,” he said. The ex-serviceman further alleged that the torture escalated after she gave birth to twins including boy, in Feb last year. “During her pregnancy, she was at our place. After she delivered the babies, her in-laws came only once to see her that too with a condition that she would handover the twins to them. After a few days, she and the babies went to their place. However, after reaching there, she was separated from her newborns and wasn’t even allowed to breastfeed them. My daughter was then locked in a room and sometimes in the toilet from July 2025 to May 2026 under horrific conditions,” he claimed. Sharing more details about the incident, the woman’s mother told TOI that during this whole period of confinement, she was fed only plain rice with onion, green chilli and salt. “Post delivery, when she needed a proper diet to recover her health, she was also forced to cook her own food outside home on firewood in the winters. We don’t even know how her twins were being treated all this while. During the whole period, whenever we called her in-laws to speak to our daughter, they would only reply that she was sleeping or bathing. Sometimes, when we insisted on letting us speak to her on phone, they would tell us that we are destroying her marital life by doing that while using the choicest of insulting slurs against us,” she added.Unable to speak to their daughter, the family decided to go to her in-laws’ place on May 26 in the Selaqui area. “We reached there after being assisted by the village head. Then also, they initially didn’t let us see her face, saying that she is fine and why are we hell bent on destroying her marital life. After much effort when we entered inside, our hearts were shattered to see her in an inexplicable condition. They had beaten her with sticks, pipes and every other item. Her mother-in-law, who tortured her the most, even attacked her on her privates with a bottle and pipe. They also pulled her hair, leaving her scalp bare on several spots. She wasn’t even treated as a fellow human, let alone being treated as a daughter-in-law,” the mother added in a tear-choked voice over the phone. She further alleged that her husband too joined his parents in assaulting his wife whenever he came home from Delhi. She also alleged that when they confronted her in-laws on her condition, her father-in-law told her that “he had clicked her objectionable photos while assaulting her”. “It shocked me to the core that how a man who is in a relationship like her father could do such a despicable thing. We just couldn’t understand the reason behind such brutal treatment to our daughter. Her in-laws were just whimsical. If we hadn’t rescued her on Monday, then they would have killed her. While she is now with us, her two kids are still with her in-laws. We want justice for our daughter and want our grand-kids with us as we don’t know what they must be doing to them,” she added. TOI contacted the woman’s husband and her mother-in-law for a comment on the allegations but to no reply. Meanwhile, acting on the complaint, police have registered an FIRagainst the woman’s husband and her parents-in-law under BNS sections 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt), 127(4) (wrongful confinement), 351 (2) (criminal intimidation) and 352 (intentional insults). Circle officer (Sahaspur), Anuj Kumar, told TOI, “Police after registering the FIR, have started an investigation to examine the allegations. Prima facie, we have found injury marks on the woman’s body. We are waiting for a detailed medical examination report after which further legal action will be taken against the accused. No arrests have been made so far.”
