BHUBANESWAR : Senior BJD leader and Lok Sabha member from Cuttack Bhartruhari Mahtab, his wife and son have been booked in an alleged dowry harassment case filed by his daughter-in-law in Bhopal.
Sakshi (34), a resident of Mahadev Parisar in Bhopal, had tied the knot with Lokranjan Mahtab on December 12, 2016 in New Delhi. She claimed that she got wedding gifts worth Rs 2.5 crore. However, she alleged, only four days later, on December 16, her in-laws asked her parents to take her away. The issue could not be resolved even after her parents discussed it with her mother-in-law, she said.
Sakshi alleged that the situation did not change even after she left for Cuttack along with her husband. She alleged that she was disowned and “treated like a maid” by the family. On January 30, 2017, she was sent to Gwalior, where her parents then stayed, Sakshi said in her complaint.
She had even moved the court for restoration of conjugal rights, but her husband refused to depose. They also refused to return her wedding gifts, she said, alleging that she had received death threats. Based on her allegation, Bhopal police has booked the MP, his wife Mahasweta and son Lokranjan under Sections 498(a), 506 and 34 of IPC and provisions of the Dowry Prohibition Act.
Bhartruhari refuted all the allegations and said his life is an open book. Stating that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is aware of the incident as ‘an elder brother of the family’, he said, “The CM attended both the engagement and reception ceremonies of the marriage. The general election was held in 2019... he knew towards the end of 2018.”
The MP said as a father, he wanted them to stay together, but they could not after four-five days. His son’s divorce proceedings are pending in a Delhi court for the last two years after failure of reconciliation efforts. The dowry harassment case looks like an afterthought and nothing like, what has been alleged, happened, he added.