GUWAHATI: Ekaterina Rezchikova had come to India to marry the man of her life. But jilted, she now finds herself in a government-run home in Assam’s Dibrugarh town.
The police arrested one Dr Samir Rahman (38), a native of the town, for allegedly cheating and sexually exploiting the nurse from Moscow. His mother and sister, who both accused of torturing the woman, are absconding.
“He has been arrested under IPC Sections 420 (cheating), 323 (physical torture) and 34 (common intention) and 120 (B). Our investigation is on,” a senior district police official said. The police came to know about Ekaterina’s fate after she had been dumped by Rahman at the Dibrugarh airport last week. The 25-year-old is a veterinary doctor but opted for a career in nursing. She had fallen in love with the accused surgeon, who has been working at the Botkin Hospital in Moscow for the past 12 years.
“Rahman had planned the marriage in Dibrugarh. Accordingly, he sent Ekaterina to India in January. He delayed his journey due to some visa problem. When the woman arrived in Dibrugarh, she was received by Rahman’s sister. After a happy living for the first few days, she was suddenly subjected to torture allegedly by Rahman’s mother and sister,”
Rajib Hazarika, the secretary general of North-Eastern Buddhist Cultural Association (NEBCA), told Express.
“The family apparently wanted Ekaterina to go back to Russia and she was in possession of a New Delhi-Moscow return flight ticket. So, they gave her a Dibrugarh-New Delhi flight ticket and ` 500. But she chose not to board the flight and was wandering aimlessly at the airport. It was then that she was intercepted by the police. Subsequently, she was dropped at the residence of Rahman. But soon the family admitted her to a local hospital and then to a mental hospital but she didn’t have any psychiatric problem at all. We rescued her eventually,” he said.
She has since been lodged at Swadhar. It is a Home under the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, which the NEBCA has been running for the past few years.
“Despite being pressurized, the woman had refused to convert to Islam. Probably, that’s the reason why she was not accepted by the family. For now, Ekaterina doesn’t have any plan to return to Moscow. She says she’ll fight her case staying here,” Hazarika said.
The Russian embassy in India has been constantly in touch with him. “Her father is said to be very angry with her and he will not accept her. We made her talk to her mother on the phone and she said her daughter would not be accepted by their community as well,” Hazarika said.