The tragic suicide of Nishant Tripathi, a 41-year-old animator, has reignited the debate on gender-biased laws and the lack of legal protections for men facing domestic harassment.
Nishant’s last note, uploaded to his company’s website, accused his wife, Apoorva Parikh, and her aunt, Prarthana Mishra, of making a situation for him to take the extreme step. Despite the FIR filed against the accused under abetment to suicide laws, no arrests have been made so far.
The Case and Suicide Note
On February 28, Nishant was found hanging in a Mumbai hotel room after placing a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on his door. His suicide note, both heartbreaking and revealing, expressed his enduring love for his wife while holding her and her aunt responsible for his demise. He also pleaded with his wife not to approach his grieving mother, Neelam Chaturvedi, who has since expressed her devastation on social media.
The Mother’s Heart-Wrenching Reaction
Neelam Chaturvedi, a well-known women’s rights activist, has spent decades advocating for women’s rights. In a social media post following her son’s cremation, she described herself as a “living corpse,” mourning the loss of her son, who she considered her biggest support. Her sorrow has brought to light a stark irony—how a lifetime dedicated to fighting for women’s rights left her son vulnerable in a legal system that fails to acknowledge male victims of domestic abuse and harassment.
Legal and Social Bias Against Male Victims
The case has once again brought attention to the alarming number of men ending their lives due to harassment in marriages, often with little to no legal recourse. Cases like those of Nishant Tripathi, Bengaluru techie Atul Subhas, and Delhi-based businessman Puneet Khurana highlight a disturbing trend where men are driven to suicide after prolonged mental and emotional abuse. Yet, despite the increasing number of such incidents, gender-neutral laws remain absent in India’s legal framework.
Laws such as Section 498A IPC or Section 85 of BNS (dowry harassment) and the Domestic Violence Act overwhelmingly favor women, often presuming men guilty until proven innocent. The absence of legal provisions protecting men from mental and emotional abuse allows such cases to escalate to tragic ends. While women’s protection laws serve an important purpose, their misuse in cases of false allegations and domestic discord has gone largely unchecked.
Men Helpline in their tweet: