Her sub-inspector husband, according to V Gowramma, used to `physically and mentally torture her' in their brief stint together. After a 10-year court battle, she succeeded in getting him suspended from the Police Department.

On Sept 9 this year, the now 37-year-old Gowramma became the 1998 `Neerja Bhanot Heroine' -- a Bravery award instituted in 1988 by the family of the late Neerja Bhanot. Bhanot, a Pan Am air hostess, was shot dead in 1986 when a Mumbai-New York plane was hijacked.

Gowramma was presented the award at Chandigarh in `recognition of my struggle for justice in crimes against women,' she told this newspaper. No small feat for a woman who has studied only up to SSLC. But then Gowramma, who has a 18-year old married daughter Rekha, has never held back from attempting the impossible.

``When I first lodged a complaint against my husband, his department shielded him. I had to walk in andout of family courts for 10 years. But I persevered and got him suspended from his post,'' she said. The 10-year court battle took her to Vimochana --the city-based womens' activist group.

``That was in 1988. Working with other victims of domestic violence made me vow that I had to get them justice,'' she said. She realised that most victims preferred to keep quiet -- either for fear of social stigma or because their families preferred `quick settlements'. ``But keeping quiet merely encouraged the perpetrators. I decided that the latter had to pay for their deeds,'' she said.

In 1997, Vimochana began to study the unnatural deaths of married women in the state. ``Every month in Bangalore, 60 to 80 young women died of `stove bursts' and other such incidents,'' she said. The study, she explained, focused on procedural lapses in investigations and highlighted the legal loopholes that helped the accused get away. And it led to Vimochana's Truth Commission for Women in Bangalore last month. Besides, the groupcompiled a manual of guidelines to be followed in such cases. But it is yet to be published.

Dealing with marital violence has, in a way, prejudiced Gowramma against marriage and men. ``I feel that 75 per cent of men are bad. At the same time, my fight is not against men alone. I want our system and its prejudices to change,'' she said. The award carries a cash amount of Rs 1.5 lakh, a citation and a trophy. ``I will put Rs 50,000 in a fixed deposit at a quarterly interest of Rs 1,372 which amount will be used to educate the children of burn victims,'' she says.