Nagpur, Oct 8 (IANS): A Vidarbha farmer's widow, who recently won Rs.640,000 on quiz show 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' (KBC), has asked United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to save her from her harassing in-laws, or else she would commit suicide.
In a letter to Gandhi, Aparna Malikar, 27, narrates how she is subjected to severe mental harassment and injustice after her husband committed suicide in 2008 due to crop failure, leaving behind a huge debt.
"My in-laws, who are very well to do and have political affiliations, are harassing me as they want the 12-acre piece of land I am cultivating," Malikar told IANS.
"After my husband died, I was forced by his brothers to leave the house. They locked the house and threw me and my two daughters out. I built a hut near the farm and have been staying there with my daughters," Malikar said.
She said her in-laws did not even pay off the Rs.50,000 debt of her late husband. "They took away the house and want the farm too, then why not the debt too? I am the one toiling hard to pay it off," she said.
In her letter in Marathi, Malikar has also narrated the plight of 8,000 other Vidarbha farm widows who are facing similar fate after their husbands committed suicide. Like Malikar, these widows were also denied the right to cultivate their lands.
She urged Gandhi to make a law to protect the rights of farm widows and provide a complete rehabilitation package.
Malikar's late husband Sanjay was the younger brother of Nagpur-based Congress leader and former deputy mayor of the Nagpur Municipal Corporation, Raghunath.
"My husband was the official cultivator of the land, but the income was also shared by other brothers Raghunath, Sunil and Raju who didn't even stay in our village (Varha Kawatha)," Malikar said.
"When the debt started rising owing to the agrarian crisis in 2005, harassment from the family members added to the agony of my husband and hence he was forced to kill himself," Malikar added.
She also accused Raghunath of using his political contacts to turn the case of suicide into a case of culpable homicide against her father and brother.
"Raghunath lodged an FIR against my father Arun Tathe and brother Amol Tathe. They were arrested and put behind bars for many days," Malikar said.