Om Puri absconding after being charged with domestic violence.

Mangaloretoday/NDTV

Mumbai, Aug 27: Actor Om Puri faces arrest as the Mumbai police has been "on the look-out" for him after his wife allegedly filed a complaint against him on last Thursday. Officers from the Versova Police Station in the western suburbs of the city said that the actor’s second wife Nandita had accused him of domestic violence.

 

According to the police, Nandita in her statement has alleged that Om Puri had beaten her with a stick and threatened her. "We have registered the complaint and booked the actor for voluntarily causing hurt by a dangerous weapon or means under Section 324, criminal intimidation under Section 506, and word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman under Section 509 of the IPC," said Harishchandra Parmale, senior police inspector of Versova police station.

Parmale said that the police had gone to the actor’s house to arrest him on Friday, but he was not there. Currently the police are tracing the actor through his cellphone. "Om Puri is absconding at present. We will arrest him as soon as we trace him."

Cracks in their marriage appeared after the launch of the biography, Unlikely Hero: The Story Of Om Puri, penned by Nandita in 2009. The book had intimate revelations which included Om’s affair with his maid. Nandita, however, maintains that their marriage started falling apart after Om’s first wife Seema made a reappearance in his life in 2008. Om and Seema courted each other for a decade before getting married in 1990. They were married for three years before getting divorced.

Nandita and Om have tried to save the marriage for the sake of their son Ishaan. But as their differences became reconcilable, the couple signed an MoU stating that they be separated for two years, leading to a divorce so their son can come to terms. But things got really bad after a showdown at Seema’s Oshiwara flat which was widely reported in the media. Despite the stipulations of the MoU, Om filed for a divorce in February. Nandita shot back saying that she had filed a legal suit against him under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act. She alleged that Om had stopped giving them money since September 2012, which Om denied.