Ponnani: In a clear case of police inaction, the statement of a pregnant woman who was paralysed waist down after being assaulted by her husband was taken up by the cops only after a week.
Though local residents caught the youth and handed him over to the cops, he was left off and now Ponnani cops are on the hunt for him.
The police say that they couldn't take the woman's statement due to the non-availability of a female cop. When protests against police inaction intensified, a case was registered on Sunday.
Cheruvila Puthanveetil Jerina, 19, a Punalur native, was hospitalised on March 19 with serious injuries. According to her complaint, her husband, Veliyankode Ayyotichira native Abdul Razik, brutally beat her up and dumped her on the road.
She was taken to hospital by a few residents in the locality. Though Jerina filed a police complaint immediately, the cops didn't take her statement for a week.
According to the complaint, the man took her from their rented house near MES College to near Ponnani police station on a bike and assaulted her brutally. Local residents spotted Jerina lying in a bad shape on the roadside and called an ambulance to take her to hospital. They caught Razik from the spot and handed him over to the police. However, the cops said that they got to know about the incident late. We couldn't take Jerina's statement until Sunday as a woman police officer was not available, said SI Sunny Chacko.
Jerina and Razik got married in December last year. Razik started beating her demanding dowry and once she became pregnant the beatings only intensified, said her complaint. There are allegations that the police were attempting to reach a compromise.
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