A CCTV footage has emerged of retired Hyderabad High Court Justice Nooty Ramamohana Rao, and his son beating up his son’s wife, The News Minute reported on Friday. The video appears to have been shot in April.
The video shows two men, one of who is Rao, and a woman shouting at the complainant. Following this, Rao drags the complainant, identified as Sindhu Sharma, to a couch. The three family members then attack her. Sharma tries to leave, but is dragged back to the bed and beaten. Her child runs out to her, but looks on confused.
Another woman then joins the family and all of them attempt to drag the woman away. When she resists, she is beaten up again. The man leads away another child who has come out to watch the incident unfold.
Justice Rao worked in the Hyderabad High Court and Madras High Court before he retired in 2017, The News Minute reported. Sindhu Sharma had in April filed a dowry harassment case against Rao, his wife Nooty Durga Jaya Laxmi and her husband Nooty Vasishta. Sharma had alleged that the accused beat her up demanding dowry.
“My husband used to assault me frequently and make demands for dowry,” Sharma told The News Minute. “But like in other abusive marriages, I would bear the violence. That night, my in-laws, kids and my husband had gone for a movie. They came back in the night and my husband came to the room upstairs where I was sleeping and started assaulting me, saying he wasn’t getting promoted in his job because of me.”
When the beating became severe, Sindhu cried out for help. However, her in-laws, who rushed into her room, started attacking her instead of confronting her husband.
“They were all hitting me,” Sharma said. “Later, even the househelp joined in. I was severely injured and they had to rush me to Apollo Hospitals in Jubilee Hills.” Sharma said that the family continued to attack her while they were on the way to the hospital. “I had collapsed after the attack and they had to carry me in a stretcher,” she added.
Sharma said that at the hospital, Rao’s first concern was to ensure that she does not tell anybody about the beating. “My mother-in-law kept yelling that I am mad and I needed sedatives,” she said. “My clothes had been torn and I asked them to give me something to cover my body, they put a bed sheet on me.”
However, Apollo Hospitals registered a medico-legal case that night, the website reported. The case report said that Sharma had scratches over her chest on the left side, abrasions over her left breast and upper lip, and bruises over her right shoulder and right forearm.
Sharma said the doctors at the hospital helped her. “I went back to my parents’ house and on April 26, I filed a police complaint,” she said. “On April 27, I sat on dharna outside their house. I wanted my children back.” The Central Crime Station in Hyderabad filed a case against Rao, his wife and son on April 26.
“What we have seen in the video, Sindhu Sharma already told us in her statement,” Assistant Commissioner of Police K Sreedevi said. “But this will serve as documentary evidence. As far as the status of the case is concerned, only serving a notice under Section 41 CrPC to Nooty Ramamohana Rao was left. The next hearing is scheduled for September 23.”
Sreedevi added that the police were thinking of requesting the judicial magistrate for permission to visit the house and seize the CCTV footage. However, now that the footage has surfaced, it will be submitted in court and the investigation continued, she said.
Sharma told The News Minute that she had accessed the videos in April, but decided to release them only now, after her husband filed for divorce. She said that she did not want to leave her kids without their fathers’ care. However, Sharma has now gained custody of one of the two children.
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