Live-ins go sour, trigger suicides

Hyderabad: When 21-year-old Maitri (name changed) decided to move into office colleague Vaibhav's house, a live-in lover, little did she realise that her dream of marriage a year later would end in disaster. Vaibhav lost interest in her and questioned her educational qualification, before dumping her. When a peeved Maitri approached court for justice, the man denied even being in a relationship with her and the heart-broken girl committed suicide in February this year.
At least 15 other women, who have been in live-in relationships, have knocked the doors of the court and subsequently ended their lives this year alone, statistics show.
While live-ins are becoming common in the city, lawyers handling such cases say break up of such relationships is forcing many young women to commit suicide.
"In most cases that land up in family courts, it's the male partner who calls for ending the live-in partnership citing minor issues like low educational qualification, family background or compatibility issues. In many cases, men would have secretly married the girl in a temple to convince her, but when asked for a commitment or to legalize the marriage, they completely deny any relationship," said Anita Salabh Jain, who has seen three suicides this year.
"Such suicides are on the rise, especially among the young," explained senior advocate, In fact most young women, who move court, are unable to get justice and many cases are closed with the litigant committing suicide.
Sadly, even in cases where women have strong documentary evidence of a relationship, they give up dejected by the rejection.