A magistrates court has came to the rescue of a 36-year-old HIV positive woman, who was turned out of her house by her in-laws. The court has ordered that the woman be taken back.
The woman’s Mumbai-based in-laws had thrown her out after her husband, a security guard from Uttar Pradesh, died of AIDS in 2010.
“Judicial Magistrate first class, P.H. Ingle, passed an interim order directing the victim’s in-laws to share the house with the woman and warned them against creating any trouble,” said Kavita Shivarkar, representing the victim.
The woman, hailing from Pune, had got married in 2000. The couple then shifted to Mumbai where the husband worked.
A year later, she was stricken by anaemia, experienced severe weakness and a sharply declining white blood cells count. On a visit to Uttar Pradesh, a doctor, who examined her, revealed that she had contracted HIV. When she asked her husband in Mumbai to take the test, the latter replied that he was aware he had AIDS.
“The woman was utterly devastated when she further learnt that her in-laws had known this fact all along but were eager to get him married so that the couple could have an heir,” said Ms. Shivarkar.
Following her husband’s death eight years later, the woman’s in-laws, on the pretext of renovating their house, coaxed her to live with her parents in Pune. But when she returned to Mumbai, she was not allowed into the house.
To add to her trauma, her own parents showed her no sympathy when she went to live with them. For the last four years, she has been living in a rented room, supported by NGO, Prayas.
