Men too victims of domestic violence: MP Police

The incidents of women being victims of domestic violence may be prevalent on a large scale but the cases of men being at the receiving end of such domestic violence are also being reported, according to an analysis by the Madhya Pradesh Police.

As per the figures, collected by the MP Police under a separate category of 'wives beating husbands' in the domestic violence segment, based on complaints received on its 'Dial-100' service, over 800 men faced domestic violence in the state in the last four months.

The Dial-100 is an emergency service of the state police to help people in distress.

However, the 'cruelty by husbands' towards their wives is still a reality with about 22,000 such complaints received in the state during the past four months, a sociologist said.

"So far, we were counting all domestic violence cases under one head. So, the cases of violence by wives against their husbands were also counted as a part of it," Hemant Sharma, the public relations officer of the Dial-100 service, told PTI.

The police segregated the data and formed a new category out of it, of 'wives beating husbands', around four months back as till then, they did not have any concrete figures of such complaints, he said.

"Since this category was formed in January this year, 802 men made calls in the last four months to the Dial-100 service seeking police's help after facing the wrath of their wives," he said.

As per the data, 158 such cases were reported in January, 179 in February, 212 in March and 253 in April.

The state's commercial hub Indore reported the highest number of 72 such cases, while in the state capital Bhopal 52 men complained to the police against their wives.

However, over 22,000 complaints under 'husbands beating wives' category were reported in the January-April period. Of these, 2,115 complaints were from Indore and 1,546 from Bhopal, according to the police figures.

Arvind Chouhan, the professor of social science at the Barkatullah University here, said new trends come to light in the society with the passage of time.

"Women are getting aware about gender equality and their legal rights because these issues are now being publicised widely through different media platforms. Therefore, the women are resisting domestic violence," he said.

India has mostly been a patriarchal society and it is unfortunate that women have been the victims of violence, he rued.