Hyderabad: A six-month pregnant tribal woman passed away in Hyderabad after her husband allegedly forced her to unknowingly consume abortion pills.
Pravalika, 23, and Sepurwar Prashanth, both natives of Adilabad, had been married for three years with a two-year-old son. She was in the sixth month of her second pregnancy.
The couple were constructing a new house in Maharashtra.
According to a police complaint registered by Pravalika’s brother, V Rajesh, the husband and his family held superstitions, believing it was misfortune for a woman to undertake part in the rituals of a new house while pregnant.
On May 30, Prashanth made Pravalika consume abortion-causing pills. Unaware of her husband’s motives, she swallowed and immediately began bleeding heavily. She was rushed to the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences University Hospital in Adilabad, where doctors declared she had suffered a miscarriage.
But Pravalika’s condition was deteriorating, and doctors referred her to Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad.
On May 31, Pravalika breathed her last while undergoing treatment. Her family accused Prashanth of her murder.
The Adilabad rural police registered a case under Section 90 (Whoever, with intent to cause the miscarriage of a woman with child, does any act which causes the death of such woman) of BNS, and took Prashanth into custody.
