Every day in 2021, almost five women in Rajkot were reportedly victims of domestic abuse, and as a final option, they filed complaints with the police.
This was uncovered in the municipal police department's first-of-its-kind examination of domestic violence complaints. In the first 11 months of 2021, the Mahila police station, which deals with these matters, received 1,723 complaints from women alleging harassment and disagreements with their spouses and in-laws.
According to the investigation, the bulk of the alleged victims were women between the ages of 26 and 30. According to police authorities, the most problems occurred after six to eleven years of marriage, as the majority of applications - 439 (or 29 percent of the total) - were presented by women who had been married for six to 26 years. A majority of the applications were from women who had been married for six to ten years.
During the Covid-19 induced lockdown, which was originally implemented in March 2019, there was a surge in instances of domestic violence across Gujarat.
In the vast majority of cases, police discovered that the intrusion of in-laws in the marital life of the husband and wife was the cause of the breakdown of the relationship.
Police reported offences against the spouse or in-laws in 126 of the 1,723 petitions, while the rest were dismissed following police counselling.
The applications were transferred to the Mahila police station for further investigation after being sent to the city police commissioner's office, involved police stations, and even the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
Manoharsinh Jadeja, Deputy Commissioner of Police for Zone 2, remarked, “almost 90% of total applications are related to domestic violence. In just about 3-4% cases, offences were registered while in the remaining, issues were sorted out between the couples or they eventually got separated. In some cases, couples even asked for more time to bury the hatchet.”
