Dowry robs Sukhi’s sight [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Dowry robs Sukhi’s sight

Local July 21, 2015

Life suddenly became gloomy for Sukhi Akhter on Friday noon when her husband gouged out her right eye and stabbed the other one with a screw driver leaving her blind.
It happened at her rented house at Savar, in the outskirts of the capital as her father could not pay Tk 1.5 lakh as additional dowry.
The husband, Robiul Islam was about to gouge out her left eye also with the screw driver when the family members of the house owner and neighours on way back from Friday prayers foiled the bid.
Sukhi is groaning in pain in Ward 526 of the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital where the doctors could not say whether she would ever get back her sight.
Though Sukhi in Bangla means happy, she lost all happiness of living.
She is the third child of farmer Nur Mohammad and Layla Begum.
Misfortune fell on her ever since she was married 10 years back when she was in her early teens to Rabiul Islam of Sadhurchar under Singair in Manikganj, about 10 kilometers from Nur’s village Mollakanda under Nawabganj in Dhaka.
Nur said he paid Tk 50 thousand and gave other valuables to Rabiul Islam as dowry at the time of his daughter’s marriage.
Since the marriage, Nur said that despite his own poverty he provided financial support to his daughter’s family with the expectation that it would bring happiness to her.
Nur said three years ago, he had to pay Tk 1.5 lakh as dowry as Rabiul demanded the money to go abroad to work.
On return home from Dubai empty handed about a month ago, Sukhi’s husband asked her to bring Tk 1.5 lakh as dowry from her father saying he would use the money to go abroad again, Nur said.
As Sukhi said that as her father could not repay the money he borrowed three years ago to pay him Tk 1.5 lakh she cannot request him to pay the dowry again Rabiul began to torture her, said Nur.
Only eight days back, Rabiul rented a house at Kalma area in Savar and brought Sukhi there telling her that he would work to earn his living, Nur said quoting his daughter.
He said Rabiul tortured her every day.
On the day before the Eid, when neighbours were busy offering Jumma prayers, Rabiul tried to tie Sukhi’s legs and locked the room from inside after sending their seven-year old daughter to a shop,
Nur said quoting his daughter.
Rabiul’s siblings Akhter and Idris held her hands, legs and head and Rabiul jumped on her chest and gouged her right eye out with a screw driver and was trying to gouge out her left eye, said Nur.
He said that at Sukhi did not take it seriously thinking that they were making fun until she lost her right eye.
Sukhi’s out cry led the house owner’s family members and the neighbours returning from the Jumma prayers at the nearby mosque to rescue her by breaking open the door of the house, said neighbours.
They also caught Rabiul, they said.
Rabiul’s brothers fled and the locals handed Rabiul over to the police.
The neighbours immediately took Shukhi, with the gouged out eyeball to a nearby hospital from where she was immediately sent to the National Institute of Ophthalmology and Hospital in the capital.
Sukhi was admitted into the hospital in the afternoon, police and locals said.
Savar police station officer-in-charge for investigation Abu Sayeed Al-Mamun said that on Saturday Sukhi’s father filed a case with the police station against Rabiul and his two siblings.
He said that only Rabiul was arrested and sent to jail.
‘I have no money, I want justice from the government,’ Nur said wailing sitting by his daughter’s bed at the hospital.
NIOH director Professor Jalal Ahmed told New Age that a board of eye specialists was providing treatment to Sukhi.
He said that the cornea of her left eye was in good condition but the nerves were affected.’
Professor Jalal said the victim cannot see.
He could not say whether the victim would regain her sight of the left eye.
Her right eye is gone as the eyeball was thrown away by the rogue husband, he said.