Danius with Jenita

New Delhi, Jan. 5: A 23-year-old Indian woman, allegedly thrown out of a moving car in the US by her husband, will now get a helping hand from the National Commission for Women.

Five months after Smalin Jenita slipped into a coma after being dumped on a highway in North Carolina, the apex Indian women’s rights body has decided to step in.

The NCW has said it would use the Centre’s diplomatic channels to try and bring Jenita’s husband Christy Danius and mother-in-law Chellam, accused in the case, back from the US.

“We will not rest till both Christy Danius and Chellam are produced in court here,” NCW member Nirmala Venkatesh said.

Jenita, an MBA, was brought by air ambulance to India by her father soon after the July 31 incident, reported widely in the US, and has been recovering at her Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) home. She got out of coma in end-December.

Trichy police have registered a case of dowry-related violence against Danius and Chellam, based on Jenita’s statement recorded last month. The left half of her body is paralysed.

A senior Trichy police officer termed Jenita’s complaints “shocking and gruesome”.

“She told us her husband and mother-in-law had taken away all her jewellery and asked for Rs 5 lakh as dowry. When she refused, they would slap her,” the officer at the Trichy (rural) police said over the phone.

Venkatesh, who recently visited Trichy to record Jenita’s statement, said she would write to the foreign ministry, the overseas affairs ministry and the Indian high commission in the US.

“We want them to use the assistance of American law enforcement agencies and arrest the mother-son duo,” she said.

Danius, a software engineer, holds an Indian passport and is in the US on a working visa. The police are unsure about the legality of Chellam’s stay in the US but said Jenita was there on a valid visa.

The couple married in August 2006. Danius was transferred to the US soon after. They lived in Ohio before moving to North Carolina, the police officer said.

The police and the NCW are also investigating the possibility that Chellam may not be Danius’s real mother.

“The evidence we have indicates that there may be a sexual relationship between Chellam and Danius,” Venkatesh said.