Muzaffarnagar (Uttar Pradesh): In a shocking incident, a family lined up outside a window to shoot a video even as their daughter-in-law hanged herself to death inside.
The family even shared the video on the social media to ‘absolve’ themselves of any complicity in the crime.
The parents of the deceased, Komal, have alleged that her husband’s family had been hounding her for dowry, which forced her to take the drastic step.
The woman’s father-in-law and mother-in-law have been arrested while her husband, Ashish, and her brother-in-law are on the run.
In the video, even as Komal is seen preparing to hang herself, the in-laws wait outside.
She can be seen tying a noose around a beam lining the asbestos roof. She is seen gasping as she ties the stole around her neck and tests the grip so it does not give way.
As she lets go and hangs herself, a man’s voice says, “Apne aap latak rahi hai (she hanged herself on her own).”
The man’s voice is presumably that of her father-in-law.
Confirming the video had been shot from outside the room where she hanged herself, SP (city) Arpit Vijayvargiya said, “They had tried to stop her from killing herself.”
Her parents, however, had a different story to tell.
Komal and Ashish got married in September 2019.
“I had given Rs 5 lakh and a bike to his family at the time. But his father Devendra, mother Savita and brother Sachin were not happy. About six months ago, they beat up Komal and drove her out of the house. The elders of the village sent her back,” the father of the deceased, Anil Kumar, said in his complaint to the police.
“Two months ago, they started demanding Rs 1.2 lakh. They said that they would get Ashish married to someone else if she could not pay the dowry. All four of them got together and killed my daughter,” he said.
Ashish, his brother and his parents have now been booked under sections 304B (dowry death), 498A (cruelty to married woman) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and under sections 3 (giving or taking dowry) and 4 (demanding dowry) of The Dowry Prohibition Act.
Yashpal Singh, SHO of Chhapar police station, said, “The parents have been arrested but Ashish and his brother Sachin are on the run. We will arrest them soon.”