Pregnant Woman Strangulated By Husband, Her In-Laws For Dowry Suffers Miscarriage

A 25-year-old woman has alleged that she suffered a miscarriage after her husband and his family assaulted her over dowry. The alleged assault happened in the Rampur village of India’s Uttar Pradesh.

The victim, Shivani Sharma filed a police complaint against her husband and her in-laws alleging them of assaulting her asking for more dowry, the Times of India reported.

Sharma, a resident of Delhi’s Gaziapur got married to Sushil, a native of Dankaur’s Rampur village. one-and-half-year back, according to the investigators.

In her complaint, Sharma alleged that her husband and in-laws were unhappy with the dowry they received when the couple got married and frequently harassed her demanding more.

She told police that in April this year when she was nearly two months pregnant with Sushil’s child, he and his family allegedly tried to strangulate her with a dupatta (a length of material worn by women from South Asia, typically with a salwar kameez).

However, she managed to escape the assault only to realize later that she had suffered a miscarriage.

Based on the woman’s complaint, a case was lodged against Sushil and six of his family members at the Dankaur police station. A further probe is underway.

In another brutal crime that occurred over dowry harassment, a 28-year-old husband who reportedly rented a deadly cobra and a viper to kill his wife has been handed a double life sentence in what prosecutors have called the “rarest of rare” cases.

The man, identified as Sooraj Kumar, a resident of the Kollam District of Kerala state in India allegedly “hired” two snakes through a snake catcher and set them loose on his 25-year-old wife, Uthra, twice in a span of a few months with the intent to murder her.

In March 2020, Kumar reportedly unleashed a highly venomous Russell’s viper snake on his wife that left her in hospital for almost two months, prosecutors said.

While she recovered at her parents’ house, on May 6, 2020, while Uthra was asleep, Kumar allegedly threw a cobra on her bed and provoked the reptile to bite her twice. She died of the poisonous bite.

He was arrested after Uthra’s parents raised suspicions and filed a police complaint alleging he and his family members of harassing their daughter for more dowry.

Kumar was charged under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 328 (causing hurt by poison), and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offense).

An additional sessions court on Monday, Oct.11, found him guilty of murder and poisoning his wife using a cobra, and of making an earlier attempt to kill her using Russell’s viper.

On Wednesday, Oct.13, Judge M. Manoj sentenced Kumar to two consecutive life sentences.