Angry over being asked to repay a loan, a woman in Bihar has chopped off the private parts of a man who had lent her the money, the police said on Sunday. Two of the woman’s family members helped her as she allegedly perpetrated the heinous act.
Ram Biriksh Prasad, 35, went through the life-threatening ordeal at the house of Pratima Devi, who
had borrowed Rs7,000 from him some eight months back. Annoyed by Mr Prasad insisting on being
paid back the sum, she invited him over to her house on Friday evening and used a knife to cut off his private parts, said police officials in Bihar’s southern Nawada district.
Coming in the middle of a raging controversy in Bihar over parts of a young man’s hands having allegedly been chopped off for failure to repay a loan of Rs300, the woman’s act has shocked public sensibilities too soon. It has also raised uneasy questions about the crude methods of vengeance still in use in disputes over small amount of money and the frequency of such incidents.
Mr Prasad, a resident of Kemai village in Nawada district, was rushed to Sadar Hospital in the small town of Nawada, some 150 km from Patna, in a pool of blood about an hour after sustaining the knife attack.
He is said to be recuperating, but nothing more about his condition could be known. “He had given Rs7,000 to Pratima Devi some eight months back and had been asking the money back for the past four months. She always gave excuses and finally committed this act,” said an official quoting Prasad’s complaint. Police, who have lodged an FIR against Devi’s father-in-law Budhan Mahto and another relative, were yet to arrest any of them.