Thiruvananthapuram: A man belonging to Dalit community has been admitted to the Government Medical College hospital here with serious injuries after he was allegedly beaten up his wife’s brother, who is a doctor, for reportedly refusing his demand for converting to their religion — Christianity — in this south Kerala district, police said on Wednesday.
Police said the incident occurred on October 31, two days after the woman left her home and married her lover against the wishes of her family.
According to the husband’s mother, the police did not act on their complaint.
The allegation has been denied by the police which said that an FIR, under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, was lodged the same day the complaint was received.
The incident came to light after the TV channels telecast the CCTV visuals of the violent assault on the man by his wife’s brother after allegedly inviting them to his residence in Chirayinkeezhu to persuade the man to change his religion.
Police said an investigation has been launched to nab the accused who is absconding following the incident.
According to an official of Chirayinkeezhu Police Station — where the complaint was lodged — initial probe has revealed that someone from the husband’s side allegedly spoke inappropriately to the wife’s mother, while at her residence, which provoked the incident.
The police said it is the version of the couple and the husband’s family that he was beaten up for not converting to Christianity.
The woman’s brother, a doctor who runs a hospital in Ernakulam, is on the run and his mobile usage has been detected in Tamil Nadu, police said.
Narrating the chain of events leading up to the incident, police said that the couple got married on October 29 at a temple and following that the woman’s father lodged a complaint that his daughter was missing.
Subsequently, when the couple came to the police station, the father asked the daughter to come back with him and promised to get them married properly later, the official said and added that she, however, left with her husband.
Next day, the woman’s father and brother met her husband’s family and they also went to a church to discuss holding a wedding there.
Later the same day, they also went to the woman’s home to meet her mother and while there, someone from the husband’s side allegedly spoke inappropriately to the woman’s mother leading to things getting heated up and her brother beating up her husband, the official said.