COURTESY MIRROR MARCH 6
STARLET ARZOO COMPLAINS TO POLICE AGAINST ‘ABUSIVE’ HUBBY
Actress provides cops with SHOCKING FOOTAGE showing her husband SLAPPING her; he says she was ‘REHEARSING for a show and had asked him to slap her
Worli police register FIR; Arzoo Govitrikar says suffering beatings for many years now, her husband Siddharth Sabharwal calls it drama
| Lata.Mishra@timesgroup.com
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TV and film actress Arzoo Govitrikar has filed a complaint at Worli Police Station accusing her husband, businessman Siddharth Sabharwal, of assaulting her in an alcohol-fuelled rage. Arzoo, sister of model-actress Aditi Govitrikar, submitted footage from CCTV cameras in her house and told the police that she has been suffering physical and mental torture for the past many years. The couple got married in March 2010 after a brief courtship, and resided at Pochkhanwala Road in Worli, before Arzoo moved out of the house a few weeks ago after what she termed as “another round of brutal assault” in her complaint.
In her complaint filed on February 19, Arzoo said that she had an argument with her husband on February 15 over his alcohol consumption, after which he “dragged her inside the bathroom around 4 am and hit her viciously”.
He threatened to kill my entire family,” she said in the complaint. The complaint further said that on January 22, following another round of arguments, “Siddharth spat on her face”, and when she protested, he “repeated the act”.
Yesterday, Arzoo, her sister Aditi, and their common friend, actor Ashish Chaudhary, were back at Worli Police Station alleging that Siddharth had taken in his custody the couple’s five-year-old son without Arzoo’s consent. Her complaint said that such an act amounted to kidnapping, even as the police have booked Siddharth under the Indian Penal Code sections 498A (cruelty), 323 (causing hurt), 504 (insult with intention to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 509 (insulting woman’s modesty).
Responding to the allegations, Siddharth told Mumbai Mirror last night that the complaint was nothing but drama. Regarding the footage of him slapping Arzoo, he said, “It was she who asked me to slap her saying she was rehearsing for a crime show. I will respond to these allegations at the right forum,” he said.
Inspector Sukhlal Verpe from Worli Police Station refused to comment on the complaint and the status of investigation.
When Mirror contacted Arzoo, she said that she didn’t want to discuss her personal matter.
Advocate Vishal Manghnani of Wishman Consultants, who drafted Arzoo’s complaint, also refused to comment