The harassed husbands association took out a victory procession in the city on Monday following the central government’s directive to states not to make immediate arrests in dowry cases.

The Akhil Bharatiya Patni Athyachar Virodhi Sangh took out their ‘vijay yatra’ around 2 pm from Manav Mandir to Gandhiji’s statue at Income Tax. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked state governments to issue directives to the police not to arrest the husband and his relatives without proper investigations in anti-dowry cases.

The harassed husbands association president Dashrath Devda said, “Since the implementation of Section 498A of IPC across the country in 1984, it has been often misused by women for petty ends and to send their husbands and family members behind bars on false grounds.”

Outside court, the man and his family members are made to shell out a lot of money as part of the settlement, Devda said. “Our Sangh organised a lot of protests objecting to the gross misuse of Section 498A. Recently, the apex court said the section was misused. The court directive to the government that only after proper investigation should a man be arrested in anti-dowry cases is a blessing for harassed men,” he said.

“At present we have 48,000 cases of husbands being harassed by women. And every month we get around 250 such cases. Our organisation tries to help and save husbands harassed by their wives,” he said.