Woman Burnt Alive 6 Months After Wedding For Dowry

Dowry, a disgusting crime in itself has led to a murder of an innocent girl. Declared a crime, it still prevails in a lot of villages and also urban areas that you wouldn’t believe. See here how!

A woman, who was married six months ago, was allegedly burnt alive by her in-laws on demand of dowry in a village Rajasthan’s Sawai Madhopur. The incident occurred on 19 May 2023 and her family members, who reached there after receiving the information, rushed her to Sawai Man Singh hospital in Jaipur, where the doctors declared her dead on 20 May 2023.

Manish Sharma, station house officer (SHO) of Bamanwas police station, said a man filed a complaint on 20 May, saying that his daughter was burnt alive by her in-laws for dowry. The body was handed over to the family after post-mortem. In his police complaint, the victim’s father, Pappu Lal Bairwa, 37, said that his daughter was married to Naval Kishor Bairwa on November 14, 2022. “I provided all necessary things in dowry for her in-laws, but they started torturing her demanding a motorcycle and ?50,000,” he said.

He said his daughter had complained to her family many times that her husband and his family members were torturing her for dowry. Police said the victim’s husband Naval Kishor Bairwa, her mother-in-law Kailashi Devi, her sister-in-law Billu Bairwa and brother-in-law Golu were booked for murder. Dowry is an ongoing practice in India since ancient times. Despite the government prohibiting it, declaring dowry as a crime, there are a lot of families that still give and take dowry. 

Dowry Prohibition Act, enacted on May 1, 1961, intended to prevent the giving or receiving of a dowry. Under the Dowry Prohibition Act, dowry includes property, goods, or money given by either party to the marriage, by the parents of either party, or by anyone else in connection with the marriage. The Dowry Prohibition Act applies to persons of all religions in India. The act itself is 62 years old! If people are still not changing, will they ever change? Dowry has resulted in deaths a lot of times. It is very typical across villages in India. 

The law was also modified in 1983 to establish specific crimes of dowry-related cruelty, dowry death, and abetment of suicide. These enactments punished violence against women by their husbands or their relatives when proof of dowry demands or dowry harassment could be shown. According to the dowry prohibition act, whoever commits dowry death shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than seven years but which may extend to imprisonment for life.

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