NEW DELHE: Police brutality is not uncommon reserved as it is for hardened criminals But an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) of the Delhi Police is rewriting history by administering third degree method to his wife.

For the last three years the New Police Lines has been ringing with the shrill cry of his tortured wife.

When she spoke to this reporter Jasbir Kaur showed her work-worn hands which bore marks of many beatings. One of her finger nails looked black and broken.

She added that her hand had been fractured twice as a result of her husband’s beatings.

According to Jasbir Kaur her husband Baldev Singh who prided himself on being an ace sportsman used his hockey stick heartlessly on her hands.

He wore his service boots and stood on her hands grinding her fingers to pulp.

She was forced to go down on all fours and parade round the hall while her husband whipped her all in front of her two children who are of an impressionable age. Neighbors in the New Police Lines confirm that wife abuse is normal in Baldev Singh’s house hold.

Finally Jasbir Kaur lodged a complaint with the Mukherji Nagar police station.

She also met several DCPs telling them that she could “wake it no more.”

When nothing happened primarily because Jasbir Kaur had not given a written complaint to the senior police officers she met she decided to cut her losses and return to her native place in Punjab. But this was not an easy decision since her parents were dead and she had to depend on her only brother living at Ajnala in Amritsar.

“I begged my husband to give me two meals In return I was willing to live in his house as a servant provided the beatings stopped but even this was not acceptable to my husband” says she.

Meanwhile she met A.S.Toor who had just taken charge of DCP Battalion in which her husband was posted.

Though DCP Toor told her that Government service conditions did not allow the DCP to deduct Baldev Singh’s salary in this way he initiated the process for further action by asking Jasbir Kaur to make her complaint in writing.

This set the ball rolling with Baldev Singh being forced 10 days ago to give in writing that he would not beat his wife.

The DCP entrusted a woman constable to keep tabs on the ASIs household and report back to him. A departmental enquiry was ordered and Baldev Singh was transferred to general duty.

Article extracted from this publication >> June 19, 1992