Doctor In Trouble

All the charges are false and baseless," Balamuralikrishna said after being arrested at Bangarpet and produced at the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) town sessions court. As the KGF Assistant Sessions Judge H.M. Bhajantri remanded the four to judicial custody till the disposal of the bail petition, the NRI family tried in vain to mask the shock over the events that had plunged them into criminal ignonimy from international acclaim in less than seven months. A plunge triggered by the marriage of Jayakrishna, 25, and Archana, 23, a diploma holder in electronics engineering.

The wedding took place on June 2 after Archana's father Nanda, a businessman, responded to a matrimonial advertisement in The Hindu . The Ambatis then were riding the wave of adulation that Balamuralikrishna received when he hit world headlines with his MD from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, US.

The marriage lasted exactly six weeks. In her complaint filed at the Bangarpet police station, Archana said that from the first day of her marriage her father-in-law Dr Muralimohan Rao Ambati and mother-in-law Gomathi, along with Balamuralikrishna and Jayakrishna harassed her for more dowry. Archana claims that before the wedding the Ambatis demanded Rs 60 lakh worth of gold, Rs 2 lakh worth of silver, and thecost of the family's trip to India.

Following Nanda's inability to meet the demands, the Ambatis settled for Rs 3 lakh worth of gold, Rs 50,000 worth of silver, Rs 50,000 in cash, and return US air fare worth Rs 2 lakh. "But on the wedding night, my husband and mother-in-law abused me for not bringing sufficient dowry and insisted I get $ 250,000, an air-conditioned car, a bungalow in Madras, and a third of my father's property," says Archana. The abuse continued till June 9 when the family returned to the US. Things only got worse, according to Archana's complaint, once she reached the US. She was introduced around as a "guest from India", locked up in a room several times, and made to write a thousand times that her father was a "scoundrel" and her mother "a prostitute". One of Gomathi's gold ornaments was placed in her suitcase and photographs taken to imply that she had stolen it. She then attempted suicide,and even tried running away from the New York home of the Ambatis. Her in-laws also forced her to sign papers for initiating divorce proceedings before sending her to India on July 16.

The charges filed: cruelty, criminal conspiracy, cheating, physical assault, wrongful confinement, and demanding and receiving dowry against the Ambatis. The police say they will be able to pursue only those charges where the offences wereallegedly committed on Indian territory—cruelty by the husband and relatives, physical assault, and demanding and receiving dowry. As evidence is a letter written by Muralimohan to Archana's father while Archana was still in the US. In it, while admitting that he had negotiated about money on the wedding day, Muralimohan has taken offence to being served vadas on a plantain leaf at the wedding "as if they were beggars", besides 20 other points which pick on Nanda. The Ambatis could receive a sentence of up to seven years if convicted.

Muralimohan told Outlook the case was a bid to frame his family. "They are trying to extort money from us." Adds Jaya-krishna: "It is foolishness to accept testimony as fact." While that issue will be debated in court, the case raises questions about the involvement of the world's youngest doctor. While S. Balan, counsel for the accused, unsuccessfully attempted to evoke sympathy over Balamurali-krishna's achievements, Archana says he is as guilty as the rest of his family. "It was Bala who caught me when I tried to run away from home in New York and he who got the polaroid film when my in-laws tried to implicate me for theft," she says .

The defence plans to contend the legality of the arrest considering the Ambatis are US citizens and the alleged offences were committed there. But the prosecution insists that the charges relate to offences committed in India and therefore the question of jurisdiction doesn't arise.

And as the case builds up, it highlights the fact that people are still steeped in a cultural morass, education and achievement notwithstanding.