Son on death bed, father elopes
Raju’s first wife, 30-year-old Nidadavolu Rama Devi, is now running from pillar to post trying to arrange for the Rs 2 lakh needed for her son, Jeevan’s surgery. Doctors say that the boy is suffering from Burkitt’s Lymphoma (a cancer of the lymph cells) and the surgery could give him temporary relief.
For the last two days, Rama Devi has thus been desperately trying to contact Raju for money as the corporate hospital refuses to operate on the boy without payment, but there’s no sign of the man.
Rama Devi of Gopalapatnam had married Raju from Pendurthy in October 2000. Raju was running a small dairy farm with the `2 lakh dowry he got at the time of their marriage. But after Jeevan was born the following year, Raju lost interest in the business and in his family.
The dairy closed and Raju was into a financial mess. To pay creditors, he extracted another Rs 2 lakh from Rama Devi’s father R. Srihari Raju, who was then a lineman with APEPDCL.
Jeevan meanwhile showed signs of serious illness and after a biopsy confirmed his cancer, he was taken to Christian Medical College in Vellore in 2008. “I spent nearly two years treating my son who was diagnosed with a tumour in the leg. During this time he (Raju) began to withdraw from us,” Rama Devi said.
She said that he did not come up with any money for their son’s treatment and while medical bills went up to a whopping `10 lakh for the two years, not a rupee was provided by Raju.
After Jeevan’s treatment, Rama Devi came to the city to live with her parents. She also filed a complaint at the Pendurthy police station against Raju under section 498A in July last year.
“Raju came to the police station with a lawyer and showed me divorce papers which he had obtained from the local court in 2007.”
“I was shocked since I did not get any notice from him,” Rama Devi said, adding that her father died of a heart attack after hearing about the divorce.
She later came to know that Raju had got married secretly to another woman in 2007 and the couple had a girl child. He was also working in a pharmaceutical company in the city, so his excuses of not having any money were false.
Her counsel Mr Kuppili Muralidhar says that he filed filed a petition in the court seeking a cancellation of the divorce. The hearing is scheduled for Friday. Senior civil judge and the secretary of district legal services authority Mr M.V. Ramana issued notices to Mr N. Chandrasekhar Raju.
Rama Devi has requested the police should step in, trace Raju and bring him to the hospital so that he pays for the child’s medical expenses. Dr N.V.S. Mohan said Jeevan is suffering from Burkitt’s Lymphoma and the surgery could give temporary relief to the boy.
