A woman in Vaishali has deserted her husband for his failure to provide her a toilet at home.

The woman, Sunita Devi, severed her ties and decided to abandon her in-law's house at Paharpur Bishenpur village in Vaishali on Tuesday after her husband Dheeraj Choudhary failed to keep his promise to provide her a toilet at home.

Sunita (24) forced her husband, a daily wager, to put his signature on the divorce papers in the presence of a number of residents, including panchayat head Ram Kali Devi. After completing necessary formalities, Sunita went to her parents' house at Dih Bichauli village, around 15km away from her in-law's house, in Vaishali.

A visibly upset Sunita said: "I preferred to stay at my parents' home for a little over three years as there was no toilet at my in-laws' place. I had to face humiliation at the hands of some neighbours, who used to hurl abuses and even threatened to thrash when I used to move to an open field under the cover of darkness to defecate. I finally decided to end my four-year-old marital ties as I found it difficult to bear ignominy."

Sunita was married to Dheeraj in 2011. Her husband admitted that she had objected to defecation in the open ever since she came to his house after marriage. "I had promised her to build a toilet for her. But I couldn't keep my promise owing to financial constraints," Dheeraj, a vegetable vendor, told The Telegraph over phone on Wednesday.

He revealed that Sunita had hardly stayed at his two-room house, half made of mud and half concrete, after their marriage. "Whenever she came to her sasural, she kept on reminding me for the toilet. My father died recently and I had to take a loan to perform last rites. I am the only bread earner in the family," he added.

Deputy block chief of Mahnar, Bhola Singh said: "It is ironical that the this panchayat was declared a nirmal gram under the Centre's Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan. The scheme aimed at providing sanitation and making remote villages free from defecation in the open. The panchayat is the native place of former Union rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh."

The mukhiya (village head) of Paharpur Bishenpur panchayat, Ramkali, admitted that the couple belonged to the Mahadalit community and their names figured in the list of the people living below poverty line (BPL). She claimed that funds were provided to the family to build a toilet, a claim outright rejected by the couple.

According to the last Census figures, a whopping 82 per cent of rural households in Bihar still don't have toilets. As a result, the residents have to defecate in the open. There have been instances when girls and women have been abducted and raped while moving out to attend the call of nature in dark.

In November last year, a 20-year-old woman, Babli Devi, a resident of Bikram in Patna rural, had refused to return to her in-laws' house after her repeated demand to construct a toilet was ignored by her husband Rakesh Sharma. "When my husband refused to construct a toilet, I left his house. It's a matter of respect, honour and hygiene," said Babli.

Senior officials in Vaishali remained tight-lipped over the issue. While Vaishali district magistrate Vinod Singh Gunjiyal was not available for comment, the block development officer (BDO) of Mahnar, Pramod Kumar, said he had been transferred.