Bengaluru: Out-of-job hubby turns escort, wife seeks divorce

BENGALURU: A 24-year-old woman has sought divorce after her husband, who lost his job at a BPO in the impact of Covid-induced lockdown, became a commercial sex worker and kept his new profile under wraps. Despite intervention by the Vanitha Sahayavani (women’s helpline) of Bengaluru police through extensive counselling sessions, the couple couldn’t bridge their differences and are set to part ways by mutual consent.It was love at first sight for Bhavesh and Smriti (names changed), who met at the office canteen of their BPO in Bengaluru in mid-2017. After courting for two years, they married in 2019 and rented a house in Subramanyanagar.Due to the crisis caused by Covid, 27-year-old Bhavesh lost his job and started looking for opportunities.Man took up sex work after he lost jobA few months later, his wife noticed something unusual as he was extremely engaged with his laptop and mobile phone, and started making untimely and unexplained visits to places about which he wouldn’t discuss in detail with her,” said BS Saraswathi, senior counsellor at Vanitha Sahayavani who counselled the couple in February.Laptop with secret folderGrowing extremely suspicious about his activities, in mid-November, Smirti took the help of her techie brother to crack open Bhavesh’s laptop only to find a folder with graphic photos.“She found a secret folder containing numerous nude photos of her husband and selfies of semi-naked women unknown to her. She discovered he was a male escort charging Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000 per hour and had numerous clients in the city,” the counsellor said.Smriti confronted her 27-year-old husband with photographs from the laptop, but he refused to admit it was him.She consulted some of her close friends and landed at the Women’s Helpline housed at the Malleswaram police station in February thisyear.“During interaction in the presence of his wife, he admitted to becoming a commercial sex worker after he lost his job. He declared his love for his newfound secretive profession which was introduced to him by a close friend,” Saraswathi said.Bhavesh, at the same time, was not willing to let go of his wife of two years and promised to mend his ways by giving up being a gigolo. The woman was determined to end their relationship despite four sessions of counselling. The couple has filed a mutual-consent divorce petition in a city court, a source said.