A man in India shot his 24-year-old wife to death on Tuesday morning for failing to hold up to her dowry. The husband, identified as Kuldeep alias Mintoo, had been caught up in a heated argument with his wife Sarika over his dowry demand from his in-laws.
The incident which took place in Sihani village Ghaziabad's Raj Nagar Extension area, led neighbors to inform the police about the shooting. Authorities reached the crime scene and found Sarika's body lying in a pool of blood.
According to India Today, the couple would frequently get into volatile arguments. Neighbors said Sarika was constantly being harassed by Kuldeep for not bringing enough money to fulfill the agreed dowry from her parents.
SP (City-1st) Nipun Agarwal said Kuldeep regularly fought with Sarika demanding the Rs 50 lakh cash ($5 million) owed to him by his wife's parents. This time around, the argument had thrown Kuldeep into a fit of rage leading him to grab a gun and shoot his wife thrice. His wife sustained bullet wounds that pierced her lower abdomen, stomach and a fatal shot in the temple of her head causing her death on the spot.
"After murdering his wife, Kuldeep and his father Moolchand escaped from the house," SP Agarwal added. Police have since dispatched teams to locate and arrest the suspect and his father to face their charges.
Meanwhile, Sarika’s parents have filed an FIR under the Dowry Prohibition Act at NandGram police station. Prior to this murderous incident, Kuldeep had been previously jailed linking him to the murder of a businessman. He was also booked under the Arms Act and other criminal cases.
Dowry deaths are predominant in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Iran, where married women are murdered, or driven to suicide by the continuous harassment of their husbands and in-laws over dowry. Indian laws prohibiting dowry have been in effect for decades. However, the practice continues to take place unchecked in many parts of the country.
Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code requires the groom and his family to be automatically arrested if a wife complains of dowry harassment. The law was widely abused, and in 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that arrests cannot be made without a magistrate's approval.
