Woman kept in captivity for 20 years by husband'

Mangalore, November 3: This is a tragic story of a 'Jaycee Queen', who is imprisoned in the dark room of her own house and kept in captivity for the last 20years. This is also a story of a stepmother and her step children with a difference. This step mother is not married to her children's father KP Suresh Raj, who is known to be an architect in Mangalore, but, lives in his house as a mistress, according to his own daughter.

"Suresh Raj built a house after his marriage to Vilasini Raj with the money he received from his father-in-law. This now costs around Rs 3 crore and situated opposite CV Nayak hall on the bunts Hostel Road which is named as 'Madhusara'. Entry to his daughter and son-in-law is denied to his house in spite of court orders."

"This mistress of Suresh Raj was married to another man whom she abandoned along with one-year-old daughter and simply disappeared and surfaced after sometime as an employee of KREC (now NITK), where Suresh Raj became friendly with her and started ill-treating Vilasini."

This weird triangle story in which Suresh Raj, Vilasini Raj and Manorama Rao were involved, came to light a couple of weeks ago, when a young couple from Bangalore paid a visit to the office of People's Union for Civil Liberties in Mangalore.

The name of the couple is Sathish Chandran and Sheen Sathish, who happened to be son-in-law and daughter of Suresh Raj. In PUCL office, Sheen narrated the story of the havoc Manorama created in their happy and prosperous family and ill-treated her.

P. B D'Sa, State President of PUCL, on Thursday addressing a press meet, here, said that he will be writing to Human Rights Commission before approaching Police Commissioner seeking justice for the victim.

The tragic story goes like this: Vilasini Raj that was having good health till Manorama Rao entered into her house in 1990 started slowly losing her mental balance and was slowly pushed into a dark room in the house. Manorama had brought along her five year old son born out of extra marital relationship with Suresh Raj. As per the statement of Sheen her father had extra marital relationship with Manorama since a long time. He had bought a house for her at Bendoorwell where her son Swarun was born. Her father used to regularly take her and her brother to Bendoorwell house, where they used to meet Manorama and Swarun. This extramarital relationship had come to the knowledge of Vilasini and she entered into Suresh Raj's office at Falneer and created a scene in the office, since Manorama used to be there in the office. This incident unfortunately turned life of Vilasini Raj; she was confined to the dark room and never allowed to come out of the house. During this long period of 20 years Vilasini Raj has lost complete balance of her mind and memory and she is unable to converse properly.

Sheen doubts the bona fides of her unmarried step-mother and suspects that her mother is medicated so that she can die a slow death and all this is for Vilasini Raj's property.

Sheen and Sathish have been running from pillar to post to stay with the mother and look after her and give proper medical care but Suresh Raj aborted all their attempts. Today they travel up and down from Bangalore where Sathish works for IT Company.

At one point of their struggle the Women's Commission had directed the Commissioner of Police Mangalore to enquire into the allegations made by Sheen against Suresh Raj, but it said that the police were won over by Suresh Raj and an endorsement was given to her that her allegations are all false. It is also said that the chairman of Women's Commission had ostensibly come for inspection and enquiry of the complaint given by Sheen and that she stayed as guest of honor in Madhusara.

Sheen of the opinion that Suresh Raj being a builder, who is friendly with the district in-charge minister, is able to face any problem unless the people of this city revolt against this sort of treatment to an honorable lady.

“While the son born out of wedlock to Manorama and Suresh Raj has inherited his illegitimate father's business and occupies “Madhusara” i.e. Vilasini's house, there is no entry to the real inheritors of the house i.e. Sheen and Sharun”, said Mr D'Sa.

Mr D'sa appealed to the women's organisations in the city, which have always upheld the sanctity of a woman and mother, to take the cause of this lady in illegal detention under another lady.

David D'Souza and Walter Pinto of PUCL were present along with Sheen Sathish and Sathish Chandran in the press meet.

PB D'Sa addresses the media on Thursday. Sathish Chandran and Sheen Sathish couple can also be seen along with him. (Photo by Ahmed Anwar)