Subsequently, his father and mother had to visit and re-visit courts/police-stations to get back their own home. An attempt at which they had been failing till date! The old man and his wife even had to spend nights at ’Gurudwara’ in spite of having a home that he had build for his old age. Unable to bear the burden of false allegations of a crime as grave as dowry harassment and the associated stigma and social ostracism, Gurpal’s father succumbed to the pressure and died of a heart attack.

Every year, about 70,000 cases of dowry harassment are filed and if the data compiled by the Centre for Social Research is anything to go by, 98 per cent of such cases are false, void of merit and filed with an adverse motive of extortion, revenge and an intention of settling petty marital discords. In the last four years, 95,000 innocent people have been arrested solely on the base of allegations of dowry harassment, without any trial ever being conducted. When such a case is filed in a police station or any so called women’s organisation, the first thing that is done is to take the whole family into the ambit of suspicion, without verification of the complaint, including small children and senior citizens, and pregnant sisters.

In case a woman dies within seven years of her marriage, the death is viewed with suspicions of dowry related harassment as a de-facto standard and the whole family of the in-laws is thrust into the prison and denied bail. Such fears have risen to such alarmingly high levels in the society that even the mention of a threat to file a case can drive any person into deep wells of fear and uncertainty.

Gurpal’s father also was going through the same mental phase. As he could not take the pressure, he suffered from an emotional breakdown and a son lost his father in the most crucial period of his life.

It is highly disheartening to see the pathetic state that men and their families are in currently in the society. Living constantly in a fear of false allegations being levied against them and washing their lives in a whiff of a moment – some commit suicides, some give way to biological irregularities while some others are compelled to give in to unreasonable, unjustified and illogical demands in lieu of not filing a case.

Is the value of a man’s life any less than the value of a woman’s life? So much so that the society considers taking their lives as ‘social service’ and does not feel any need to take some steps to improve conditions. Gurpal’s wife is responsible for his father’s sad demise, and charges of abetment of suicide need to be levied against her. Such a blatant misuse of laws deems punishment. Such acts are no less than ’legal terrorism’.

Save Indian Family Foundation (SIFF) – a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) – committed to the cause of spreading awareness of this ongoing ’legal terrorism’ in the society and helping its victims, seeks to demand police intervention in Gurpal’s father’s sad demise and book the offenders for the crimes that they have committed. A man’s life is not to be wasted like this; making it a price of unleashing legal terrorism and such a loss needs to be compensated with timely justice.

It would be absolutely mandatory to reiterate here that as per National Crime Records Bureau’s data, every year, close to 75,000 men end their lives in suicide, more than double the number of women. Yet, men have no protection from the law. In addition to that, they are subjected to wide and blatant false allegations and victimised by a highly biased legal system plagued with lopsided laws.

Gender biased and draconian laws formed on the basis of highly bloated statistics are coming under high scathing as they are increasingly becoming tools to exercise unwarranted power and control. To add to it, they have become legal channels of tax-free money extortion sponsored from tax payers’ hard earned money. SIFF condemns such laws and urges the government to take drastic and timely steps to avoid a social catastrophe turning a civilised society into a jungle of state-sponsored-legal-terrorism ,snuffing lives out of innocent citizens in the dusky days.

Unfortunately, if this had been the father of a girl, all TV news channels would had flashed the news that ’an old father ended his life for dowry harassment’ and the husband’s father/mother/sisters/child would have been put behind the bars. But cases like these always go unreported, resulting in more and more elder people loosing their lives silently, which it seems that not only the government authorities, but our media friends also believe to be considered as ’social service’.