Incident Reports

In-laws kill Saptari woman for ‘insufficient dowry’

2016-04-07

Madhes, Saptari, Rajbiraj

A woman was reportedly murdered by her in-laws after she could not bring as much dowry as the family wished, in Rajbiraj, the Saptari district headquarters, recently. Saraswati Devi Mehatar, who had just given birth to a baby boy 18 days ago, was murdered on Saturday. Organising a press conference in Rajbiraj today, parents of the victim from Darbhanga of neighbouring Bihar state of India accused the victim’s husband, parents-in-law and sister-in-law of burning their daughter to death. Mehatar’s father Arun said the family had offered the dowry as committed but his son-in-law Karan demanded Rs 20,000 more recently. As the woman’s parents were refusing to meet the demand, the four poured kerosene on her body and charred to death, he claimed. Karan and Saraswati had tied the knot a year ago. The victim’s mother Manju Devi said her girl had reported frequent psychological and physical abuse from the family earlier. Meanwhile, the family accused the Saptari District Police Office of blocking them from filing a case. The DPO, however, said they could not do anything until the postmortem report was released.
Details and Impacts
Violent / Non-violent Violent
Onesided / Twosided Onesided
Collective / Interpersonal Interpersonal
Primary Form Murder/attempted Murder
Weapons Fire
Primary Cause Related to disputes over dowry
Actor 1 - Number of people 2
Actor 1 - Affiliations Family/relative
Actor 1 - Youth na
Actor 2 - Number of people 1
Actor 2 - Affiliation (Target) Family/relative
Actor 2 - Youth unknown
Total Killed 1
Female Killed 1
National/Online Media

0 Comments