Pooja Chauhan

Rajkot, July 10: Pooja Chauhan had marched in underwear against “harassment” by her husband and mother-in-law, but her neighbours have labelled her a “tormentor”.

As CDs of Pooja’s show of protest on July 5 are circulated in the city, the tide seems to be turning against the 22-year-old.

Pooja had filed a case against husband Pratap, mother-in-law Hansaba and neighbours Ranchod and Vinod, accusing them of harassing her.

But her neighbours in the labour-dominated colony of Mafatpada echoed her husband and mother-in-law’s claim that it was Pooja who had been assaulting them.

“She wants Ranchod to be punished because he tried to intervene when she almost strangulated her mother-in-law, who is in her late 60s,” said Bijuben.

Hansaba claims her daughter-in-law left home one-and-a-half-years ago because “we have been telling her not to consume liquor and return late at night”.

But Pooja said she was thrown out, which is when she decided to file a case under the Domestic Violence Act. Her case will be heard on July 13.

Pratap, a vegetable vendor, said Pooja had been cheating and harassing his family since they married in 2004.

Saurashtra-Kutch Network on Violence against Women, the NGO sheltering Pooja until last evening, has, however, dismissed all accusations levelled by her husband.

Pooja was moved to Kanta Stree Vikas Gruh, from where she tried to escape today. She has since been barred from meeting reporters.

Rajkot police commissioner K. Nityanandam said her husband, mother-in-law and Ranchod had been arrested the morning she went on the march. But Pooja wanted the police to hand Ranchod over to her so that she could make him wear bangles. “We could not oblige her,” he said.