The final time had been in anger, in a protracted fight that began because he suspected her of cheating on him as he found another man’s number on her phone. “Indian men aren’t romantic compared to other parts of the world,” Dr Ravi Verma of ICRW observes. “Egalitarian expectations of romance last only till they are assured of control in that relationship.” The rape had been to teach her a lesson, for her refusal to be claimed as his property—but Sunanda hadn’t taken this lying down. She had stabbed him, got her brother and fifteen to twenty others to beat him up, and tried to file a police
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