Nagpur horror: 19-year-old newlywed woman subjected to sexual abuse, killed for dowry

NAGPUR: A 19-year-old newlywed Nagpur woman, who was tortured for dowry and subjected to sexual harassment by her brother-in-law, was strangled to death last Friday by her in-laws, who projected it as a fatal heart attack, said police.

Their lies were nailed after her body was exhumed last Sunday for autopsy, which revealed critical findings — compression marks on the neck and signs of asphyxia, pointing to strangulation, not natural death. The woman's parents had performed her last rites at a Muslim graveyard in Amravati city, where they resided.

Two recorded clips of the woman's desperate calls to her mother were also clinching evidence that led to registration of a murder FIR and arrest of her husband and brother-in-law late Tuesday. Her elderly father-in-law is yet to be taken into custody. The accused, residents of Mominpura locality here, were remanded to police custody till Friday.

The woman, who got married in January, was continuously subjected to dowry harassment and the trauma worsened after her brother-in-law began demanding sexual favours.

The woman regularly shared her ordeal with her mother on phone, and two voice recordings that captured her distress have now become crucial evidence. In these recordings, she was heard describing the pressure for more dowry and the unwanted advances of her brother-in-law.

A day after her parents were told that she had died of a heart attack, they reached Nagpur from Amravati. They got possession of their daughter's body after a prolonged standoff and buried her in their native Amravati. A police complaint was lodged on May 17.

Acting on the complaint, police and district administration in Amravati exhumed the body and on orders of the sub-divisional officer, an autopsy was performed at the burial site and a murder case was registered at Tehsil police station in Nagpur.

Voice recordings recovered from her mother's phone are expected to play a key role in establishing the motive and pattern of abuse. The woman's family alleged that the in-laws tried to pass off the murder as a natural death to skirt the police.

(The victim's identity has not been revealed to protect her privacy as per Supreme court directives on cases related to sexual assault)