Behrampore, Aug. 29: El- ders in a Murshidabad village have given the go-ahead to a young husband who wanted to divorce his teenage wife because she was allegedly untidy at home.

A compensation of Rs 800 should be enough for 17-year-old Amita to accept the split, a meeting of the elders decreed.

The girl refused to accept it. She went to the police station at Nabagram, about 230 km from Calcutta, where the officers first refused to accept her complaint and then tried to pressure her into submission.

Today, Amita met the superintendent of police at the district headquarters. The complaint not accepted in six months was lodged in minutes.

Amita was first accused of not being clean in her habits six months after the marriage to affluent farmer Baidyanath Hansda, 22, two years ago. “My in-laws would accuse me of not cleaning my hands with soap frequently and not changing clothes in the morning. Is this reason enough to demand a divorce?” she asked.

After being humiliated earlier this year, she went away to her labourer father. Baidyanath did not come to take her back from Ukhra, 4 km from his house. The Madhyamik-pass husband went to the village elders instead, seeking a nod to his divorce petition.

Amita and her father Shyam Maddi were summoned to the shalishi meeting in March.

Susanta Maddi, who sat in the jury that day, said: “When we questioned Amita, she could not refute the charges effectively. So, we thought she was really unclean.”

Some of the villagers opposed the decision, though. “In 2006, will any one believe that a shalishi was called to grant a husband a divorce because his wife did not wash her hands frequently?” asked Dablu Soren, a resident of Baidyanath’s village and a high school teacher.

Amita marched to the Nabagram police station after hearing the verdict. But officer-in-charge Jyotirmoy Bagchi insisted that she accept the divorce for Rs 800.

In May, the OC called her again to the police station and pressured her to agree to the offer. Amita did not. She went to the police station on August 13 with a written complaint. The OC refused to accept it.

A week later, Amita was called to the police station. In the presence of her husband and his associates, she was told by the OC and other officers to come to a settlement.

“I want to initiate a case against my husband,” Amita told Murshidabad police chief Rahul Srivastava today.

The superintendent has sought a report from the OC on why the complaint was not accepted. “I have also asked him to register an FIR and initiate a case against the husband.”