Amritsar, June 24: In an unusual case, a man and his wife, married for less than a year, levelled charges of domestic violence against each other, and both have approached the police.

Interestingly, while the wife has charged the husband with beating and harassing her mentally, besides demanding dowry, the husband alleged that he was locked up inside the bathroom for hours, before being rescued by neighbours.

The wife has also alleged that her husband, who was earlier married to a girl from Shimla, had also maltreated his first wife. Kamaljit Kaur, a resident of Batala Road, in a letter to SSP Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh, alleged that she was beaten up and harassed for bringing inadequate dowry and has demanded that a case be registered against her husband and in-laws. She said that she was married to Inderjit Singh, a resident of Chheharta, in August last and her father Sukhman Singh, a bank manager, who is suffering from cancer, had given dowry as per his means.

She, however, said that barely a month after her marriage, she was tortured physically and mentally. Kaur said her in-laws’ family expelled her husband from their property as he did not have a proper job, had no fixed income. “My in-laws demanded a plot and Rs 2 lakh from me and beat me up when I told them that my father could not afford to give them this,” she said, adding that her father and brother bore their expenses after his family expelled her husband, who, however, continued to torture her.

“He used to keep me locked up, starved me and tried to kill me by throwing petrol and acid on me. I saved my life by locking him up in the bathroom and escaped to my parents’ house,” she said.

However, Inderjit Singh termed these allegations as baseless. Accepting that this was his second marriage, he charged Kaur with being married previously and keeping it a secret from him. “I never harmed her, rather she was the one who locked me up in the bathroom from where my neighbours rescued me in an unconscious state and this was even proved true by eyewitnesses and the police,” he claimed.

SSP Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh said he had received the complaint of the girl and an inquiry has been marked to Vijay Nagar Police Station SHO.