HYDERABAD: A day after registering a case against Sirish Bharadwaj and his mother on a complaint from Chiranjeevi’s daughter Srija, police started investigation into the allegations of dowry harassment against them even as efforts were reportedly on to settle the matter amicably.
Based on a complaint by Srija, the Central Crime Station (CCS) registered cases under section 498A (harassment) and Dowry Prohibition Act on Monday against Srija’s husband Sirish Bharadwaj and his mother G R Suryamani. Srija had alleged that Sirish expected money from her family and the harassment had grown once Chiranjeevi patched up with her after the birth of her daughter.
With Sirish’s harassment, Srija re-registered all the property which was in her name to her parent’s name. This made Sirish angry, she said in the complaint. Srija reportedly told police that Sirish’s mother was also inciting him to demand more money. She gave a clean chit to her father-in-law in the statement recorded by the CCS sleuths.
Since the past few months, Sirish was allegedly harassing his wife to get Rs 50 lakh as additional dowry. When she refused, she was further subjected to ill-treatment and was not allowed to leave the house, Srija alleged. Srija was also allegedly physically assaulted by Sirish and her mother-in-law on a couple of occasions, sources said.
On one occasion, Srija was hit against the wall and she even sustained an injury near her ear. In her statement, Srija also alleged that her in-laws tried to separate her from her baby.
Sources said Srija was in contact with her parents regularly after the patch-up and was informing them about the harassment through e-mails and SMSes. Police are now trying to collect the mails sent by Srija as evidence. They are also trying to get the copies of the documents re-registered in her parent’s name by Srija.
However, they added that no arrests have been made. “We will arrest those involved only after probing the allegations,” a senior official said adding that that the two families are “talking to each other” to settle the issue amicably.