Ten years after a woman died by suicide along with her infant aged one-and-a-half years due to dowry harassment, a sessions court in Dindoshi has acquitted her husband and three in-laws.
The deceased’s father Vallabhdas Rayani had lodged the case against his daughter’s husband Kaushal Patel, the husband’ father Gopal Patel, mother Rama Patel and sister Tanvi Patel two days after the incident. The father did not stand by his complaint during the trial. Rayani told the court the manner in which his daughter had died by suicide, taking her infant daughter along, but said he did not know why she had done so. He was shown the suicide note she had penned before her death. He told the court he could not tell if it was written by his deceased daughter.
The prosecution had shown him the complaint he had lodged at the Kandivali police station. He said he had lodged the complaint in anger. He further said that his daughter had never confided in him about any dowry harassment she was facing from her husband and his family.
Additional Sessions Judge AZ Khan stated in the order, “No doubt the complainant has not supported the case of prosecution on material particulars and thus the examination of other witnesses would be nothing but futile efforts on part of the prosecution and the conviction cannot be sustained even though the other witnesses would have been examined.”
The court further said that the the prosecution had failed to prove the offences under the IPC of dowry death, abetment of suicide and cruelty by husband or his relative, among other offences.
The couple had got married in 2009 and the incident had taken place on Oct 22, 2012 in a building in Kandivali where the deceased was residing with her husband and in-laws since marriage. As per her father’s complaint, the accused were unhappy that Krutika had delivered a girl child and would harass her. In Aug that year, the harassment peaked and they demanded that she get Rs. 7 - 8 lakhs from her parents for interior decoration of a newly purchased flat. They harassed her when she could not get the money and she had died by suicide, taking her infant daughter along.
