Andhra Pradesh police found a 35-year-old woman named Supriya confined in a house for nearly 14 years by her husband and in-laws. Based on a complaint from Supriya's family, the Vizianagaram district police have registered a case against her husband Madhusudhan and his family for wrongful confinement and subjecting the woman to cruelty.
Vizianagaram I-Town police officers told the media that Supriya's family lodged a complaint with them after they were not allowed to visit her at her husband’s house on February 27. According to the police, Supriya's in-laws initially demanded a search warrant or a notice under Section 41A (notice of appearance before police officer) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and refused to let the police enter their house. The police then filed a petition at a sessions court which granted them a search warrant.
Supriya, a native of Puttaparthi in Sri Sathya Sai district, married Madhusudhan from Vizianagaram district in 2008. Madhusudhan worked as an IT employee in Bengaluru at the time of their wedding. Supriya said she returned to her parents' house a year later when she was pregnant, and delivered her first child at her maternal home. In 2011, Madhusudhan returned to Vizianagaram to practise law and asked Supriya to return there too. Since then, Supriya alleged that her husband and in-laws kept her confined inside the house, and that she was not allowed to communicate with her parents. Since she was confined to the house, Supriya gave birth to two more children.
“Because of some misunderstandings that kept building up, my in-laws and my husband started to treat me and my family with animosity. I had no courage to ask for anything. I had no access to communicate with my family. I just worked at home and stayed calm. I endured the psychological harassment,” Supriya, a postgraduate in English literature, told the media. She said that after moving to Vizianagaram in 2011, she only stepped out of the house into the city a couple of times in the beginning, and never left the house since then.
Supriya’s mother Hemalatha said, “To avoid arguments, we did not lodge a complaint all these years. Along with many relatives, we went to see our daughter many times in all these years but they (her husband and in-laws) never allowed it. Even the police were not allowed inside the house until they brought a search warrant.” Suggesting that Supriya looked frail and infirm, her mother added that she hoped Supriya's health would improve soon.
Police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) under Sections 498A (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty), 343 (wrongful confinement for three or more days), 346 (wrongful confinement in secret), 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).