Abuse And Torture Of Elderly Mumbai Woman Posted Online, Leads To Arrest Of Accused Assailants [Video]

A shock video of a Mumbai man brutally assaulting his octogenarian mother went viral on Wednesday, and in turn, aided in the capture of the assailant and two other individuals involved in the crime.

As reported by the Business Standard, 47-year-old Surendra Vaid was picked up on several charges of unlawful confinement along with his wife, Babita, 43, and 19-year-old daughter, Akshaya, for what Indian law officials say is a long culmination of emotional and physical abuse against Vaid’s 80-year-old mother, Mayawati Vaidya (some news sources have her age listed as 82).

In the video, which was said by The Times of India to have been shot in June, Vaid is witnessed strangling the frail older woman with a blanket around her throat as she pleads for her safety and gasps for air. As she tries to fight back, Vaidya is dragged across the floor of the home by her legs, her waist, and at one point, by the blanket wrapped around her neck. Vaid’s daughter Akshaya is said to have been the one who filmed the troubling encounter, as his wife goads him on off-screen with laughter and words of hatred for her elderly mother-in-law.

“This woman is so stubborn,” Babita is heard expressing in her native tongue as Vaid continues his ruthless assault.

Once he exhausted himself, Vaid then sat on his mother’s chest and tied another bed sheet around her leg, before attaching the other end to a ceiling fan in his living room. He then turned the contraption on and allowed her to spin for an unknown amount of time.

A piece of the video can be seen here. Please proceed with caution, Inquisitr readers, as it is somewhat graphic in nature.

During their first court appearance for the crime, it was revealed that Vaid’s mother had been victimized for nearly three years at the hand of her son and daughter-in-law. Furthermore, had it not been for a non-governmental organization in Mumbai that specializes in women’s issues coming across the video, the abuse against Vaidya might have continued to go on unnoticed.

“The old woman has [stayed] with them after the incident,” DN Nagar Police Senior Inspector DS Nalawade said during a court proceeding Thursday morning.

As for why the attack occurred, Nalawade clarified a supposed rumor regarding the intent, but seemed not to be aware of the exact reasoning.

“The exact cause of torture is unknown,” he added, “and property [ownership] does not seem to be the motive [at hand].”

The Vaid family have been officially charged with a bevy of Indian penal codes, including common intention, grievous hurt by act endangering life, wrongful confinement, outrage modesty, intentional insult and criminal intimidation. There has been no word on possible sentence length or fine amounts, although each charge can lead to either or both options being an outcome.

In January of this year, another instance of alleged elder abuse carried out by the married relative of an older woman caused shock waves in the country.

As previously noted by the International Business Times, CCTV footage of Sangeeta Jain trying to kill her mother-in-law, 70-year-old Rajrani Jain, also somehow made its way to the internet. In an eerily similar fashion to that of Vaid, Sangeeta also attempted to strangle the elder Jain with a cloth before trying to bludgeon her with a stone. When neither of those options worked, Sangeeta then attempted to electrocute the older woman with a water-heating rod.

According to sources connected with the case, the near-murderous incident was one of several that Jain had tried over the years.

[Featured Image by yodaphoto/iStock]