Sunder Mina had been searching in vain for his three daughters and two grandchildren who had disappeared for days from the house where they were staying with their in-laws in Dudu, a village in the Indian state of Rajasthan, when their bodies were found in an old well.
Kalu, 27, the mother of a 4-year-old boy and a 27-day-old infant, and her two younger sisters, 20-year-old Kamless and 22-year-old Mamta, both pregnant, had married three brothers and lived in Dudu in their in-laws' house.
The youngest, before their death, had written on Whatsapp: "our in-laws' family is responsible for our death (...) we did not want to die, but death is preferable to inhuman behaviour".
Four days after the tragic news, Mina, his wife, his eldest son, his three other daughters and relatives are crying for the three girls and grandchildren.
Police are treating their death as a suicide, a Zaipur police official said. But Mina blames his in-laws for the abuse and non-stop harassment his daughters were subjected to for years.
Abuse
Kalu was hospitalized in April after being beaten by her husband and her family.
[/P][BR][BR]"My daughters were being abused and coming back here. But despite the violence, they said they should return to their husband's house and they did," recounts their father.
As divorce is considered a disgrace for most families in India, Mina would let them return to their in-laws' house "to save their family's honour."
According to him, the in-laws blamed his daughters for their minor dowries. "Those who ask for dowries are not good people," he stresses, "it's inhuman."
The dead girls' wives, their mother-in-law and sister-in-law were arrested on charges of harassment.
"They harassed them," says Sonu, another daughter of Mina, "but my sisters hoped that one day things would change."
Dowry giving has been banned by law in India for more than 60 years, but the practice remains widespread.
Dowry their education
"We had already given them so many things," adds Mina, citing televisions, a refrigerator, furniture... "I am a father of six girls, there are limits to what I can do."
"I had endowed them with education, already this is difficult," he continues, pointing to their student IDs.
But the husbands had forbidden the girls to continue their studies and work.
The local press daily reports stories of domestic violence and fights between relatives over dowry with bad outcomes.
Last year an Indian man from Kerala state was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing, in a cobra bite, his wife in order to gain control of her assets.
In May, a court in Kerala sentenced a man to 10 years in prison for pushing his wife to commit suicide because of harassment over her dowry.
"Disturbing resignation"
According to National Crime Records Bureau data, nearly 7.000 married women were murdered and 1,700 others committed suicide in 2020 over dowry-related issues.
A national family health survey revealed that about 30% of married women in India are victims of domestic violence, physical or sexual.
Women's rights advocates, however, believe that these figures are only the tip of the iceberg.
"Thirty to forty women every hour are victims of domestic violence," said Kavita Srivastava, an activist with the non-governmental organisation PUCL, stressing that these figures are based only on complaints made to the police.
The main problem, according to her, is that Indian society remains apathetic to domestic violence: "this resignation is very worrying."
Source: APM
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