Pooja Thapak’s parents get custody amid dowry harassment allegations

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Four months after Pooja Thapak (25), a public relations officer, committed suicide at her husband’s house in Saket Nagar on July 9 this year, her parents were given custody of her son Prakhar (3) on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Thapak’s in-laws have claimed that Pooja did not commit suicide due to dowry harassment but due to guilt. They uploaded a video on Friday saying Thapak had married someone else before marrying their son Nikhil Dubey. When Dubey came to know about her first marriage, disputes arose between them frequently, after which Thapak hanged himself in their house due to guilt.

Govindpura police station TI Awadhesh Singh Tomar told Free Press that Thapak’s parents had been given custody of their grandchild Prakhar three days ago, but Thapak’s in-laws had not handed him over to them. Following this, Govindpura SDM Aditya Jain along with police reached Dubey’s house on Saturday and demanded custody of the grandchild to hand him over to Thapak’s parents.

Biased researcher and father of Tikamgarh collector Nikhil Dubey

ML Dubey alleged in the video that after Thapak committed suicide, Govindpura police conducted investigation in a biased manner and wrongly implicated their son Nikhil and their family in a dowry harassment case. He added that Thapak’s brother-in-law Awadhesh Sharma, appointed as District Collector of Tikamgarh, put pressure on the police to conduct the investigation in Thapak’s favour.

Police have found evidence of dowry torture

Govindpura ACP Deepak Nayak said police have found evidence that Thapak was harassed by the Dubey family for dowry. He added that Thapak had spoken about dowry harassment through text messaging applications to her relatives and police found the messages after unlocking her mobile phone.