Teacher assaulted by husband with glass after she questions multiple traffic challans by her in-laws

A 32-year-old teacher was attacked by her husband with broken glass in East Delhi’s Mansarovar Park on Sunday morning when she questioned him about the multiple traffic challans her in-laws had allegedly attracted while driving her car, police said on Wednesday.

The woman alleged that her in-laws had accumulated nearly Rs30,000 in penalties after receiving nearly 20 challans for traffic violations over the last three-four months.

“I was paying for their fault,” the woman said, adding she finally lost count of the number of the notices she got.

The man, who works at a government office, was booked under section 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) of the Indian Penal Code, arrested and released on bail.

“The woman told us she decided to raise the issue with her husband as she was embarrassed over the repeated traffic violations,” Amit Sharma, deputy commissioner of police (Shahdara), said.

The woman is a government school teacher and lives with her husband at a rented house in Mansarovar Park. Her in-laws live elsewhere in East Delhi and drive the car she received from her parents during her wedding, she said.

“I and my husband live separately but my in-laws were driving my car. Over the last three months, we kept receiving messages from traffic police about traffic violations,” the woman said.

Since the car was registered in her father’s name, the challans would be sent her father’s mobile phone, leaving her “embarrassed”.

“Each time my father would alert me about it, I would communicate it to my in-laws. They kept on promising to pay the penalties, but never did. It was me who was paying it all the time,” the woman alleged.

According to the new Motor Vehicles Act, speeding draws a penalty of Rs2,000 and traffic line violation Rs500.

On Sunday morning, there was yet another challan for red light violation, she said. “When I raised the issue with my husband, he turned aggressive and attacked me,” the woman alleged.

In her complaint to the police, she accused her husband of banging her head on the wall and leaving her injured in her arm with a broken glass.

Since the lockdown, cameras installed at multiple junctions and stretches kept on eye on vehicles and were used to send challans for speeding and red light violations as traffic police personnel avoided issuing manual notices to keep themselves safe from being infected by Covid-19.

The high number of challans issued during the lockdown led to many essential service providers, particularly doctors, demanding that these be rolled back. One doctor, for example, was fined Rs50,000.

But a senior traffic police officer said fines will continue to be issued even if a motorist gets penalised multiple times on a single stretch on the same day.

There are a total of 236 speed-detection cameras in different parts of Delhi. During the first month of the lockdown, as many as 10 challans were issued every minute.