Fiery end to a long fight with husband, inlaws

WARANGAL: A long battle with father-in-law as well as her husband, who was allegedly neglecting her and their three young children, ended in the most terrible way one can imagine.
Sarika, an engineering graduate from KITS at Huzurabad in Karimnagar district and belonging to Adluri Yellareddy Gudem of Kamareddy mandal in the Nizamabad, met Anil Kumar, former Congress MP Siricilla Rajaiah’s son, in 2002 while pursuing her degree.The couple married soon after and went to London. They returned to Hyderabad in 2005. From 2007 to 2012, Sarika worked as a software engineer at IBM in Hyderabad as a SAP business intelligence consultant.
In April 2014, while living in Hyderabad, that Sarika first approached the Begumpet police in the city alleging that her in-laws as well as her husband were harassing her. She had also alleged that her husband was having an affair with another woman and by constantly harassing her, wanted to get rid of her. She also tried to kill herself by slashing her wrist in the same year.
When her complaints fell on deaf ears, she then approached the City Civil Courts at Nampally in Hyderabad which ordered the Begumpet police to register a case based on her complaint. She also alleged that her husband was encouraging her three sons to develop a relationship with the new woman in his life, a resident of Kazipet.
Under directions from the court, the Begumpet police filed a case against Rajaiah and his family as well as Anil under IPC 498 A (domestic violence) in March 2013. Simultaneously, a similar case was filed by the Subedari police in Warangal, under whose jurisdiction Rajaiah’s residence falls.
Apparently, failing to get any relief from the police, Sarika launched a hungerstrike outside Rajaiah’s house on April 27, 2014 in the run-up the general elections that year. Rajaiah was the Congress candidate from the Warangal Lok Sabha constituency.
On Wednesday, soon after the tragedy, Sarika’s mother Lalitha and younger sister Archana rushed to Warangal. Lalitha told reporters that there was no question of Sarika committing suicide. “She came home for the festive season and said she would fight it out with her husband and in-laws. All she wanted was means from that family to raise and take care of her children as they are young and she could not leave them all day and go to work,” Lalitha said.
In 2002, Anil Kumar fell in love with his engineering college classmate Sarika, a native of Sadasiva Nagar in Yellareddy town of Nizamabad district and they married at Marredpally sub-registrar office.