Suspicious at sixty
HYDERABAD: Sarada Natarajan (name changed), had doubts about her husband's fidelity all through their 33-year-long married life. She just never did anything about it, until she turned 59, and was fired up and fed up. A little hesitant at first, she hired a detective agency in the city to put a tail on her husband, only to find out that her husband had a second family in Eluru with a young wife and two children. Two weeks later, she filed for divorce and demanded a hefty sum as alimony.
Many women between the age group of 45 to 60 are now hiring detective agencies to obtain proof of their husbands' indiscretions, so that they may later divorce them. A good 15 per cent of infidelity cases that come to detective agencies in the city are filed by older women, with the help of family members. Interestingly, in most cases the husbands are found guilty of having a second marriage.
Detective agency owners have noticed a spurt in similar cases, and attribute this to the hefty amounts that men cough up when their indiscretions are uncovered, which may be as high as Rs 40 lakhs. They usually even prefer to settle such cases without approaching the courts. "It is a matter of shame for the man. In most cases women are paid up even before the divorce cases reach the court. A settlement is made between the wife and husband and they decide to live separately," said D K Giri, owner, Sharp Detectives Pvt Ltd, a leading detective agency in the city.
Most women who file such cases are supported by their family members say the detectives. In some, the couple's children help the mother to 'trap' the guilty husband. "In one case that came to us the husband was so discreet that we had to take the help of the only son to get a confession from his father about a second marriage. The same was used to arrange a separation with a decent amount as compensation," said an executive of the Morya Detective agency, who added that women usually ask for documented evidence of infidelity including video tapes, photographs and recorded conversations.
