Man Held Wife Captive For Over A Year Because She Could Not Deliver Boy Child: Police

A man has been accused of sexually harassing his wife while holding her captive in a room for over a year. The accused was arrested Thursday after the chance discovery of an SOS note dropped by the victim, police said.

The police arrested the suspect and rescued his 41-year-old wife, along with their three daughters, from a house in Pandharpur, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. The officials have not revealed the identities of the victim and the suspect.

The victim and her daughters, aged between eight to 14, were rescued Monday after a woman accidentally came across an SOS note dropped by the victim outside her house. The woman reported it to the police who raided the couple's residence the same day, bringing an end to the victim's captivity and abuse, Hindustan Times reported.

The victim told the police that she was forcibly held inside the room for more than one and a half years. The woman accused her husband of sexually harassing her multiple times over this period.

She alleged that she was abused for not delivering a boy and was forced to do multiple abortions. The suspect was detained on charges of rape and other relevant charges under the Indian Penal code, police said, Outlook reported.

A similar case of sexual assault in forcible confinement was reported in Houston just over a month ago. A 17-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted while she was locked inside a storage room for five days.

The investigators found out that Joel Micah Arnold, a 34-year-old man, kidnapped the teenager at gunpoint and led her into the storage room. The victim managed to escape the ordeal by dropping a message to her friend from the suspect's phone after he accidentally left it in the storage room. The police eventually detained Arnold on charges of aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault and trafficking of a child.