In a shocking CCTV footage that has emerged online, retired Hyderabad High Court Justice Nooty Ramamohana Rao, his wife and his son are seen allegedly assaulting their daughter-in-law, Sindhu Sharma. In April this year, the victim Sindhu Sharma had levelled allegations of domestic violence against her in-laws saying that she was beaten up for dowry.
Sindhu had alleged that Justice (Retd) Ramamohana Rao, his wife Nooty Durga Jaya Lakshmi and her husband Nooty Vasista had physically assaulted her demanding dowry.
Now, the emergence of CCTV footage showing violence being meted out to Sindhu by his in-laws family corroborate her allegations of domestic violence against the 3 family members. “My husband used to beat me up habitually and make demands for dowry. Like in all other abusive marriage, I patiently endured the excesses. One night my in-laws and my husband had gone for a movie. When they returned in the night, my husband came upstairs in the room where I was sleeping and started hitting me, saying I was responsible for him not getting promotions in his job,” Sindhu said to the News Minute.
— Dhanya Rajendran (@dhanyarajendran) September 20, 2019
A CCTV camera installed at the home captured a series of video unravelling the brutal onslaught that Sindhu endured that night. In one of the videos, four family members are seen animatedly arguing over some issue. In an instance, the younger man can be seen vigorously pushing his wife and hitting her. He then shoves her on the couch. As the woman tries to get up and respond to the young man, the old man stops the woman by holding her arm and decks her back onto couch. He is seen aggressively pushing and strangling her.
During this, a toddler is seen in the video, clutching at her mother’s leg who is being assaulted by the two men in the video frame. At this juncture, another woman enters the room and then they pull the younger woman off the couch onto the floor. The woman’s other child who comes in the room is reprimanded by the young man and sent back in the other room.
Several other videos from the house’s CCTV camera illustrating in horrific details the atrocities meted out to the survivor have surfaced, strengthening Sindhu’s allegations that she was continuously tortured and physically abused by her in-laws family.
Sindhu alleges that when the assault intensified, she called for help. However, far from helping her, the in-laws barged into the room and started assaulting her, she claims. Sindhu asserted that later even the househelp joined in to beat her. As she was grievously injured, the family rushed her to hospital in the car. According to Sindhu, she was verbally and physically assaulted in the car as well while she was being transported to Apollo Hospital in Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad.
Sindhu asserted that the Judge’s primary concern on reaching the hospital was to stop her from narrating her ordeal to others. “He kept shouting at them that I am mentally unstable and I need sedatives to stabilise me. My clothes were torn so the hospital staff gave me a bedsheet to cover myself,” Sindhu said.
Disregarding her father-in-law’s demands, the hospital authorities helped Sindhu to file a medico-legal case. Sindhu had scratches over her chest on the left side, cuts over her left breast and upper lip, and contusions over her right shoulder and her right forearm.
After being discharged from the hospital, Sindhu went to her parents’ house and filed a case against the retired judge, his wife, son and their househelp at the Central Crime Station in Hyderabad under sections 498A (cruelty by husband and relatives), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code and Dowry Prohibition Act.
Several other videos from the house’s CCTV camera have illustrated in horrific details the atrocities meted out to the woman, strengthening her allegations that she was continuously tortured and physically abused by the retired HC judge, his wife and their son.
ACP K Sreedevi, Assistant Commissioner of Police said that they were planning to obtain magistrate orders to obtain the CCTV footage from the house, but as the videos have surfaced now, they have decided to submit the same at the court and proceed with the investigation. Sindhu said that she had accessed the videos in April, but decided to release them only now, after her husband filed for divorce.
