103-year-old woman, son, booked for chucking out daughter from Marine Drive home

In a bizarre series of events the Marine Drive police booked a 103yearold woman along with her 85yearold son and 71yearold daughterinlaw for denying entry to her 75yearold ailing daughter The victim who suffers from Parkinsonrsquos disease and diabetes and her 55yearold daughter were made to wait for four hours even after police interventionThe incident took place in a tenancy flat at Chateau Marine on Marine Drive where the Sethi family lives On June 13 the victim Urvashi was discharged from hospital after 28days of treatment but was denied entry to her own houseAlso read Mumbai BMC cleaner finds baby in dustbin at Marine DriveThe Sethi family resides in a tenancy flat at Chateau Marine on Marine Drive Churchgate PicSatej ShindeThe tenancy flat is originally in the name of A L Sethi the father of Urvashi the victim Urvashi lived in that flat along with her parentsmdashA L and Sumitra Sethi and brothersmdashVinay and Shashi A L Sethi had mentioned in his last will and testament that Urvashi should inherit the tenancy rights of the said flat as his other two kids were doing welllsquoTorture on since 1996rsquoAccording to Namrata Urvashi was forcefully sent to a rehabilitation centre in Chennai in 1996 Namrata who lived separately came to know about this and brought her back in 2003 In January 2018 Urvashi needed to be hospitalised due to ailments After she was released from the hospital the family members did not let her enter the flat She was finally let inside after Marine Drive police intervenedUrvashi Sethi accompanied by daughter Namrata being taken to the hospital on a stretcherNamrata said ldquoThere was a conspiracy to send my mother away Her physical and mental health deteriorated during the 8 years of exile and wrongful confinement Meanwhile a flat in Colaba that belonged to my mother was sold for Rs 30 lakh and I was told the money was used for keeping my mother in rehab But I know that the actual expenditure couldnrsquot be more than Rs 672 lakhrdquoldquoSince January 2018 my motherrsquos ordeal got worse and the torture started more frequentlyrdquo she added ldquoMy maternal uncle Vinay and Nabla wife of my deceased uncle Shashi manhandled and intimidated my mother multiple timesrdquoThe recent eventOn May 15 Namrata received a call from Urvashirsquos caretaker Anjali Burman that Urvashi wasnrsquot well and needed medical intervention Namrata rushed her mother to Bhatia Hospital in Tardeo where she was diagnosed with pneumonia and excess fluid accumulation in her lungs Doctors allegedly said that Urvashi wasnrsquot given medicine properly for 2 weeksUrvashi was finally discharged from the hospital 28 days later on June 13 When Namrata took her mother to Chateau Marine nobody opened the doorldquoMy own mama maternal uncle said I had no rights to enter the house and should take my mother with me My mother was lying on the stretcher in the ambulance waiting for 4 long hours but they didnrsquot budgerdquo said Namrata She added ldquoHow can one behave so inhumanely with their own siblingrdquo Namrata accompanied by her lawyer alerted Marine Drive police but even cops failed to get the family to open the doorMeanwhile Urvashirsquos condition deteriorated again and she had to be rushed back to the hospitalFollowing this cops have booked Sumitra Vinay and Nabla under sections 341 wrongful restraint and 34 common intention of the IPCCop speakldquoThe victim was living in the said flat for more than 30 years Denying her entry to the house is against the law The ownership of the flat can be challenged in the court but the act of the family members was criminal hence we registered the FIR against themrdquo said Vishwanath Kolekar senior inspectorVictimrsquos lawyer saysAdvocate Varsha BhogleDeshmukh who is representing the complainant said ldquoShe is a woman and a senior citizen It is a tenancy property She was residing and living in the house at the time of the demise of her father the rightful tenant She has continued to live in her house for the past 52 years She was admitted to the hospital from the said house and was disallowed entry after discharge from the hospital She was made to suffer and stranded in the ambulance for over 4 hours in these COVID times And her daughter had to make rounds of the police station trying to get help so that she could get her mother to the safety and comfort of her own home Even neighbours and onlookers have witnessed their ordeal suffering and plightrdquo she saidShe further added ldquoHer daughter had to appoint private security guards for the protection of her mother in her own house The situation is that bad and selfexplanatory There are a lot of other very serious cognisable offences that have not been registered against the accused There were successive attempts by the perpetrators to make it look like the woman succumbed due to natural causes and that is the reason why her lifedependent medicines were manipulated in the first place This apart from the harassment cruelty physical and mental torture at the hands of the accusedrdquoThe other sideThe accused have denied all allegations Their lawyer advocate Himanshu Maratkar said ldquoThese days we are seeing that there is a growing impatience in the younger generation who wait to inherit their familyrsquos properties and as a result they start bullying the old relatives In the current case we are dealing with a 45yearold woman who is capable of earning her own living and even has her own apartment and yet she is heckling her 103yearold grandmother by coming to her house daily She even pressured the police to file an FIR by falsely presenting the facts purely with a view to dislodge the old lady from her own houserdquoMay 15Day Urvashi was admitted to hospital