Brides’ deaths linked to dowry demands

Press, 7 June 1983, Page 11

Brides’ deaths linked to dowry demands

NZPA New Delhi Sixteen newly-wed women have died of burns in the Indian capital in the last week because their parents could not pay their in-laws enough dowry. The death of Padmawati Khurana, aged 23, on Saturday in a low middle-class New Delhi district has triggered strong protests by local residents.

Riot police used metaltipped bamboo staves to disperse hundreds of protesters, who staged a procession with Mrs Khurana’s body to demand that the Solice blacken the face of er in-laws and parade

them through the streets. The police seized the body from the demonstrators and later cremated it under tight security. Mrs Khurana’s mother-in-law, brother-in-law and two sis-ters-in-law were arrested on charges of murder. The police are looking for the missing husband. The police have reported two more “bride burnings” after Mrs Khurana’s death. In all the cases the in-laws were accused of pouring kerosene on the young bride’s clothing and setting her on fire.

The police believe that some of the young wives,

unable to bear constant harassment by in-laws for bringing inadequate dowry, have set themselves on fire. Concerned by the increase in the number of dowryrelated deaths, Indira Gandhi’s Federal Government has directed the police to order post-mortem examinations and arrest inlaws on charges of abetting suicide or murder in all cases of bride burning. The authorities say that 260 young women died of burns last year in New Delhi. Many of the burning deaths were reported from middle-class Punjabi lan-guage-speaking families.