Not willing to defecate in open, newly-wed Bihar woman divorces husband over `no toilet` at home

Archana Gautam told the village panchayat that her husband Bablu Kumar has been ignoring her repeated appeals that they must have a pucca toilet at home.

Patna: A newly-wed woman in a village in Bihar has declared she is "divorcing" her husband for not getting a toilet constructed at their house, and making her suffer the humiliation of going out into the open to relieve herself.

Archana Gautam told a gathering of Khothawa village panchayat in West Champaran district on Thursday that her husband Bablu Kumar has been ignoring her repeated appeals that they must have a pucca toilet at home.

"I have been forced to make way to an open field every day under the cover of darkness to relieve myself. The owner of the land repeatedly insults me," she said.

Bablu and Archana married last May. "Ask your parents to get the toilet built," Bablu has been telling her, Archana said.

"I am fed up with him and forced to leave him," she reportedly told the village panchayat.

Millions of people in Bihar do not have a toilet at home.