NGO compared Ravan’s sister with the gender biased laws and want to liken her to those women who file false complaint against men.
Dussehra festival is celebrated by burning the effigy of Ravana and signifies the triumph of victory over evil. On the other hand, NGO Vaastav Foundation celebrated the festival in a strange manner by chopping off the nose of Surpanakha’s effigy for highlighting the growing misuse of section 498 A by women in Andheri (W). Chandan Samant and his mother Preeti Samant inaugurated the nose cutting event. Manjulata Goyal’s son Nitin Goyal who too is a victim of the misuse of section 498-A too had participated in the event.
Section 498A was enacted to protect the woman from harassment being meted out her against her husband and in-laws. However, there have been several instances where women have filed false cases against their husbands to extract money from them. Some women have filed fabricated complaints of rape against their husbands thereby causing severe hardships to them. As a result of this men have to undergo severe depression as they end up committing suicides. Police often visit the office premises of men in order to shame them and jeopardize their job situation. They also pick up relatives of men who are not even named in the complaint, they are illegally detained by police and forced to give their statements.
Amit Deshpande founder of Vaastav Foundation said, “According to us Surpanakha represents the hyper aggressive woman who upon being rejected or on termination of relationship cook up false stories and traps innocent men by filing fabricated cases against them. The attitude of the gullible section of the society that believes words of a woman as gospel truth, only because of her gender is the Raavan within the society that we hope gets destroyed when we symbolize burning of the evil.”
“Women generally go ahead and falsely accuse men of rape or sexual assault. If a wife files a false complaint against husband pertaining to rape even though the offence is not committed then it is unjustified. We want to expose those women hence we have organised this event.”
Avinash Patil said, “Surpanakha resembles what is wrong with our society to expose so called liberal section of society. Section 498 A is misused and I have also become victim of false complaint filed against me.”
What is Section 498A?
In 1983, ‘Section 498-A of the IPC was introduced with avowed object to combat the menace of harassment to a woman at the hands of her husband and his relatives. The fact that Section 498-A is a cognisable and non-bailable offence has lent it a dubious place of pride amongst the provisions that are used as weapons rather than shield by disgruntled wives.
