DOWRY DEATHS

On 23 April 1993, 25 year old newly married Namita died in a Faridabad hospital due to burn injuries sustained in her home. She had received burn injuries on 21 January of that year. For almost 2 months she struggled bravely with her burn injuries, but ultimately infection supervened and she had to succumb to her injuries. During her illness, she gave a statement to the magistrate to the effect that her in-laws frequently used to beat her for bringing insufficient dowry. This put her husband and parents-in-law in great trouble.

To understand the case fully, let us begin at the beginning. Namita was married to Vinod, a 26 year old boy on 13 January 1992. At the time of marriage it was decided that Rs 1 lakh will be spent on marriage. Namita's father was a poor man, yet he somehow arranged for the money on loan, and paid the dowry as stipulated. However just 2 weeks before marriage, Vinod attended the marriage of one of his friends Shyam. Shyam was the son of a rich businessman, and he was getting married to an equally rich person's daughter. He got lavish presents in his marriage from his wife's side, including a brand new Maruti car. This turned Vinod's mind topsy-turvy. He also began dreaming of getting a car in his marriage. His parents Gyan Ram and Somwati who also attended the marriage also began having the same dreams. They forgot that their own social status was far below that of Shyam and his family.

This caused a major rift between Vinod's and Namita's family even before the marriage. Although a dowry of Rs 1 lakh had been stipulated at the time of marriage, the parents of Vinod suddenly changed their stance and began demanding for more dowry, which now included a Maruti car as well. Namita's father told that he could not arrange for such a heavy sum, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Actually Namita's father should have broken the marriage there and then, but he was a socially conscious individual and did not want to earn a bad name in the society. The marriage cards had been distributed to all the relatives, and if the marriage got cancelled now, it would a very bad name to the family. So he agreed to give a Maruti car as soon as possible after the marriage. But he had no idea, how he was going to arrange for a car. He was already up to his neck in debt. But since he had to marry his daughter, he agreed to give whatever his son-in-law desired.

Needless to say, just after marriage, trouble started for Namita. In her in-law's house, there were 3 individuals, her husband Vinod, and his parents. She served all of them with full zeal and affection, yet she failed to win their hearts. The reason was that there eyes were set on a new Maruti car. Whenever Vinod saw his friend Shyam roaming around with his wife in the new Maruti car, his heart would miss a beat. He would also start dreaming about a similar car. He would come home, ask his wife when her father was going to give him a car, and on not getting a satisfactory answer beat her badly. His parents also frequently joined in the beating.

On Deepawali of the previous year (1992), the matters assumed a very serious pitch. It had been told to Namita's father that he should positively arrange for a car by the Deepawali, which they wanted as a present for the first Deepawali after the wedding. But her father could only arrange for a new scooter and not the new car. This enraged all the three members of her in-law's house, her husband Vinod, her father-in-law, Gyan Ram, and her mother-in-law Somwati. They began openly cursing Namita's father, even in her presence. This made her very sad. She discussed about this matter with her husband Vinod too, but he was also mad after the car, so he also refused to listen to her.

Meanwhile an interesting development had occurred. Namita's parents saw another girl whose parents promised to give a car to anyone who would marry their daughter. This made them mad with greed, and they somehow decided to do away with her. They had come to know, that in his lifetime, Namita's father would never be able to give them a car, and it was no use asking for the car again and again. On the other hand if they did away with Namita, and married their son to that other girl, they could get the car very easily. They told about this plan to Vinod, who also agreed to participate in the plan.

On 21 January, Namita had gone to fetch milk in the morning, when the three hatched a devilish plan to do away with her. When she came back, they began beating her badly. Gyan Ram brought a wooden cane from somewhere and hit her hardly on the legs. The idea was to make her immobile so she could not run away for help. This broke the bone of her left leg, and she began limping. Then Somwati brought a can of kerosene and doused her sari with it. Vinod lighted a match and set her sari on fire. The fire at once engulfed Namita. Both her legs were severely burnt. The poor girl couldn't even run as her left leg had been broken by Gyan Ram. Now all the three began shouting that Namita had fallen in a tub of hot water and had sustained scalds. The neighbors collected in no time to Vinod's house. They saw a horrible scene there. Namita's sari had burnt completely and she was lying naked on the floor crying and sobbing with pain. The males were so ashamed that they immediately put a blanket over her. With the help of some females, they admitted Namita to the nearest hospital.

I was contacted by the police when Namita was in the hospital and had given the statement that she had been beaten and burnt by her husband and in-laws. The in-law's story of course was that they were innocent. According to them, she had accidentally fallen in a tub of boiling water which was lying in the bathroom for taking bath. Since it was winter season, everyone in the household took bath with hot water. The boiling tub was lying there in the bathroom. Everyone used to take little water from there in a separate bucket, and mix cold water in it to his liking, so that the water became less warm and to the liking of each one concerned. According to them, the mistake that Namita did was to think that this water was ready for bath. So she took off her sari and entered the tub, which caused scalds on her legs. As for the fracture of her leg, they said, that on having got burnt, she jumped out of the bath and began running. In the way she slipped and must have sustained the fracture.

On the face of it, their story seemed very plausible. It certainly accounted not only for all the injuries sustained by Namita, but even for why she was found naked in the verandah by the neighbors. But they forgot that science could catch their lies very easily.

I saw Namita when she was in the hospital. I had requested the investigating police officer to take me there. What I saw was very scary. The bone of her left leg (technically known as Tibia) was broken. The doctors were trying to fix the fracture by a procedure known as external fixation (Please reproduce fig 3.25 (a) on page 41 here). When I looked at the underside of her legs, I was horrified to see how badly they were burnt (Please reproduce fig 3.25 (b) on page 41 here). She was in such a state of shock that she could not even pass the urine, and the doctors had to pass a tube through her genitals to make her pass urine. In short, she was in a really bad shape. But what I could immediately make out was that her burns were not scalds as claimed by her in-laws. Scalds are caused by boiling water and liquids while burns are caused by flame. If Namita had really received injuries by hot boiling water as claimed by her in-laws, her injuries should have been scalds, and not burns. Scalds have an altogether different appearance than burns. Scalds have blisters while burns do not have any blisters over the area of burns. I did not see any blisters over the burnt area, so I decided that Vinod and his parents' story was wrong. As for the fracture of the leg, it was a very massive fracture, with tibia breaking into 4 different pieces. This was a definite indication that someone had hit her with a hard weapon. By falling she could never have sustained a fracture of the leg. At the most she would suffered a fracture of her hip bone or thigh bone, and even that fracture would have been of quite a simple nature. Such a massive fracture of tibia definitely indicated that she had been beaten.

The court accepted my arguments, and gave life imprisonment to all the three culprits.

(To protect the identity of the individuals, their names, as well as the various dates of occurrence have been changed).