Correspondent: Dowry Law Tx Date: 16th November 2003 This script was made from audio tape – any inaccuracies are due to voices being unclear or inaudible 10.00.00 Correspondent Theme Music 10.00.11 Music 10.00.16 Adam Mynott A young couple setting off on the Indian dream - a successful, prosperous life together. 10.00.21 Music 10.00.23 Adam Mynott It’s the wedding season in India. Thousands of young people are getting married. 10.00.27 Music 10.00.28 Adam Mynott This lavish marriage in a five-star hotel has cost thousands of pounds. 10.00.32 Music 10.00.34 Adam Mynott Weddings in today's India are increasingly about conspicuous consumption - spend it, flaunt it. 10.00.42 Adam Mynott Across town a Muslim ceremony with the dowry out on show; gifts and cash from the bride's father. Muslims never used to give dowries. 10.00.51 Music 10.00.52 Man We have organised a motorbike, it's the latest brand of the…Freedom, that is. We bought a cupboard and a LG fridge plus we got a twenty-two inch flat front TV, we got a Whirlpool washing machine, suitcases, bags out here and the clothing also … for the boys as well as girls and for the relatives as well. And gold…jewelleries and good gifts and everything whatever was possible. 10.01.18 Music 10.01.21 Adam Mynott The moment his daughter was born the bride's father started saving for this day. No expense has been spared, no detail overlooked. 10.01.31 Adam Mynott The dowry will have set his family back a small fortune. And for the groom's family it's bonanza time. Gifts all round. 10.01.40 Music 10.01.44 Brinda Karat The market's just driving dowry, it's, you know it's like a new engine to this whole thing of dowry and it's, it's being driven by the market, it's being driven by consumerism, it's being driven by the feeling that ok we want this and this is an easy way to get it. 10.02.02 Adam Mynott Dowry demands for money, ultimatums and threats can keep going long after the wedding is over. With constant pressure on young brides and their families. 10.02.14 Title Page DOWRY LAW 10.02.21 Adam Mynott In Delhi a special police unit has been set up to help young married women who feel harassed. 10.02.33 Adam Mynott It's busier than ever. 10.02.37 Adam Mynott Day after day brides come with their parents complaining about demands, about beatings and mental torture. In male dominated Indian society women here seem to be fighting back. 10.02.50 Woman Sir, go to hell! 10.02.53 Adam Mynott But they're up against generations of discrimination. 10.02.57 Old woman Subtitles Look at this, she hit me. I swear to God, she hit me. What sort of young girl is she? 10.03.07 Adam Mynott The dowry was outlawed forty years ago but with the booming economy it's now back with a vengeance. 10.03.18 Adam Mynott Behind almost every case are rows about dowry. 10.03.23 Adam Mynott The officer in charge is Superintendent Vimla Mehra. 10.03.34 Superintendent Vimla Mehra One of the main problems is of course dowry and I don't know why it happens because it seems that more and more women come to us that my husband is asking for a scooter or a motorbike or some jewellery or some money so that he could start his work or business. Perhaps it's, it's one of the easiest way to get money. 10.03.59 Adam Mynott A local journalist, Smita Choudhary, has been watching dowry in India surging back. Another case has just come in. 10.04.11 Adam Mynott This woman from Rajasthan has brought her family to the police station. She claims one of her daughters was killed by her son-in-law's family. Anju was burned to death in the kitchen. 10.04.24 Adam Mynott Her mother wants the dowry back. 10.04.26 Adam Mynott Three children. 10.04.26 Smita Choudhary She had three more sons and the sister has gone mad after that incident. 10.04.31 Adam Mynott Her other daughter is married into the same family and the mother claims she's now being harassed for dowry as well. 10.04.38 Smita Choudhary She says I want justice and I want all the money, which I have given for dowry. 10.04.42 Adam Mynott How much money did she give? 10.04.46 Smita Choudhary She gave two hundred and fifty thousand rupees for the two sisters. 10.04.51 Adam Mynott That's a huge sum for this family; over three thousand pounds. 10.04.57 Adam Mynott It's dowry again and again and again. What I'm not sure about is why she bought this case up now, her daughter died two years ago. 10.05.06 Smita Choudhary Now she feels that there is no hope for this girl because they're asking for the dowry once again. So there's no hope to settle this child and she'll have to pay out more money if she has to send her back. 10.05.17 Adam Mynott She's been asked for yet more dowry on top of what she's already paid. 10.05.19 Smita Choudhary Yes because they're saying that has been consumed with the first daughter's marriage and so she should pay again. 10.05.27 Adam Mynott The in-laws family have all turned up and now the two husbands who are brothers decide to wade into the argument. 10.05.38 Adam Mynott One says they were never legally married because the girls were too young. 10.05.46 Adam Mynott The row is all about money; everyone seems far more worried about the cash than the dead girl. 10.05.52 Families arguing 10.05.55 Adam Mynott In the middle of the arguing and the abuse a police officer is trying to work out who is telling the truth. 10.06.01 Families arguing 10.06.06 Adam Mynott Everyone has a different point of view and anyone within shouting range gets an earful. 10.06.14 Adam Mynott What we've also got is one of the brothers claiming to have had no relationship whatsoever with this woman. Where the truth lies, I don't know yet. 10.06.26 Smita Choudhary They were married as children. 10.06.28 Adam Mynott Right and that's a Rajasthani custom? 10.06.30 Smita Choudhary Yes. That's not valid legally. So there's one guy who's saying there is no marriage so what are we talking about? So you see, we have a law and we have a caste system and we have… and we have families. 10.06.45 Adam Mynott And you have a dowry and it all makes a mess. I mean, you know, it is funny but at the same time it's, a woman has died in this. 10.06.55 Smita Choudhary They're saying she burnt herself while boiling milk. It is possible but you know only the women are boiling milk and then they are burning themselves like and always the young ones. The mothers-in-law have not been boiling milk. 10.07.12 Music 10.07.17 Adam Mynott Tihar Jail in Delhi is the largest prison in Asia. 10.07.21 Music 10.07.29 Adam Mynott It's visiting day but these women and their children are on the wrong side of the bars. All are in prison for dowry crime. In many cases jailed for setting their daughters-in-law on fire. 10.07.42 Music 10.07.49 Adam Mynott Anjali is the resident social worker in Tihar. This block is exclusively for mothers-in-law; more than a hundred of them, the numbers are growing all the time. 10.08.07 Adam Mynott Dowry related death. So she's been convicted of killing a daughter-in-law. 10.08.12 Anjali Yes. 10.08.13 Adam Mynott What's she been accused of? 10.08.18 Anjali The daughter-in-law died. 10.08.20 Adam Mynott How did, how did she die? 10.08.25 Anjali The daughter-in-law gave the dying declaration that the in-laws held her hand, daughter, sister-in-law put fire to her and the husband poured kerosene over her. But the husband is out; the rest of the family is inside. 10.08.40 Music 10.08.42 Adam Mynott Dowry crime was spiralling out of control and the government passed laws so that anyone even remotely connected to the death of a wife can be thrown in jail. 10.08.53 Adam Mynott If a bride dies in the first seven years of marriage her family can file a charge alleging dowry crime. 10.08.59 Music 10.09.01 Adam Mynott All the in-laws can be imprisoned. 10.09.04 Music 10.09.10 Adam Mynott I came across mothers, sisters, sons, daughters, aunts, even nieces and nephews all behind bars in Tihar. 10.09.25 Adam Mynott Some are growing up in jail simply because their families are here. 10.09.30 Adam Mynott Who's this? This is, this is the son of one of the women who's, who's in the… 10.09.34 Anjali Yes, her sister-in-law died so this is one of the sister-in- laws, her son. 10.09.54 Adam Mynott This old woman and her daughter have done two years of a twenty year sentence for murder. The son wasn't charged. The women claim they weren't there when the daughter-in-law died. 10.10.06 Anjali The daughter-in-law bolted the door from inside and put herself on fire, how is she responsible for her death? 10.10.14 Smita Choudhary Basically the boy was very jealous and they were fighting very badly. And the sister-in-law feels that she, this was tension between husband and wife and they got involved in it. 10.10.25 Sister-in-law Subtitles We always made the wives part of our family. Nobody ever comes to visit us. We are innocent. 10.10.33 Anjali She feels very lonely and abandoned also because the son doesn’t come to meet her either. He has got married again. He has family. 10.10.40 Adam Mynott And then he doesn't come here any longer? No. 10.10.50 Anjali translating old woman If I had done something I would have felt satisfied, ok I did it that's why I'm here. 10.10.55 Adam Mynott But she feels she didn’t do anything and now she's been abandoned. 10.10.59 Adam Mynott The so-called accident is always the same; it's always in the kitchen and nobody's ever at home. 10.11.06 Anjali She says that yes, I've been convicted unfairly, that my daughter-in-law has said that whilst she was cooking her nightgown caught fire, she gave that dying declaration. 10.11.19 Adam Mynott Everybody here says it wasn't me, I'm not guilty and I, I'm puzzled by what they're doing here then. 10.11.24 Smita Choudhary The conviction is if the dowry, if the suicide or the death has been abetted, that is also a reason for conviction. 10.11.29 Adam Mynott Right, that's enough. Yes, right. 10.11.32 Smita Choudhary And that reason can be either present very obviously like in the actual burning or in, in a mental state of mind or the pressures that were there on the daughter-in-law. 10.11.42 Adam Mynott So if you're involved in the harassment, in the view of the court, you're part of the crime. 10.11.46 Smita Choudhary Yes. 10.11.47 Anjali What they say is that look, our mother-in-laws used to turn to us and we were made to work very hard or whatever or we did not have any freedom doing anything on our own, we were like kind of answerable to everybody in the family. 10.12.01 Adam Mynott It's no surprise that few say they're guilty. But some are behind bars carrying the can for the dowry crime committed by their sons. 10.12.10 Adam Mynott Because in Indian society men are simply more important. They can remarry, find a new wife and get the new dowry that goes with her. 10.12.20 Anjali To parents minds, it's ingrained in Rajasthan that boys means that… 10.12.27 Adam Mynott Boys mean cash basically. 10.12.28 Anjali Uh huh. 10.12.29 Adam Mynott I mean they do, they do in marriage terms, don't they, boys mean cash. 10.12.33 Music 10.12.43 Adam Mynott Kajal and Anand; the perfect union. Two young doctors from good families. An arranged marriage and a financial deal. It looked like a match made in heaven; beautiful upwardly mobile Kajal Sharma and Anand Singh from a higher caste family in need of cash. 10.13.01 Music 10.13.06 Adam Mynott So this is… 10.13.07 Smita Choudhary This is Kajal's room. 10.13.17 Smita Choudhary Gifts to be given throughout the year at every festival and then when the girl has a child and I was so, you know parents prepare in advance for all these things. 10.13.29 Adam Mynott So this, she'd already bought all this? 10.13.31 Smita Choudhary This was for the future yes. For the entire year. 10.13.39 Music 10.13.43 Adam Mynott Kajal Sharma's parents had spent a fortune on her education; pretty and clever they now wanted an upper class husband for her and they knew the right young man would cost them thousands of pounds. 10.13.55 Music 10.14.01 Smita Choudhary Her books and the teddy she gifted to her mother. 10.14.04 Adam Mynott That teddy bear? Yeah. 10.14.09 Smita Choudhary She used to call her mother teddy bear. 10.14.11 Adam Mynott Did she? 10.14.18 Music 10.14.23 Adam Mynott The wedding costs and the dowry were mounting by the day and Kajal's father even had to turn to her brothers for money. 10.14.36 Adam Mynott So this was a grand wedding? 10.14.38 Brother It was a grand wedding. 10.14.39 Adam Mynott What are these? 10.14.40 Brother These are gold and diamond ornaments. 10.14.45 Adam Mynott And these were what, presents from your family? 10.14.47 Brother Yes they were presents from my family and relatives to the girl for her marriage. 10.14.55 Adam Mynott In the marriage video Kajal is on show, packaged up in her wedding finery. 10.15.02 Adam Mynott This wasn’t a love marriage? 10.15.04 Mrs Sharma No, no. 10.15.05 Adam Mynott But why, in that case, why push your daughter into a marriage that wasn’t a love marriage? 10.15.13 Smita Choudhary translating Mrs Sharma They were after us for the marriage and they were so persuasive that it seemed like they really wanted my daughter and that was good enough reason to have her married in that house, if somebody's asking for a girl then you presume that they would also treat her well. 10.15.27 Adam Mynott The money thing was really important to them wasn’t it? 10.15.30 Brother It was very, it was everything like the father, Doctor BB Singh, he had called my father once before the marriage to his house in the morning to discuss that what is your budget. That was the word he had used; budget. Budget is a financial word. At that time my father gave him a good schooling that if you want money from us we will not marry our daughter. At that time he said; oh don't be angry, we will not talk like this. 10.15.55 Adam Mynott The Sharma's drew the line at buying a seven thousand pound Toyota car for the Singh's. But they did eventually settle on a final dowry figure. 10.16.07 Adam Mynott I'm not very experienced in what goes on but this was obviously a wedding where a lot of effort, a lot of expense was put in. I mean some of these clothes are incredibly ornate and all these decorations and the jewellery that the bride's wearing, there was a picture here somewhere; there we are, with her mother. 10.16.28 Adam Mynott Mr Sharma is an engineer, not badly paid, certainly not rich. He'd been saving for Kajal's wedding since her birth. Even so, he said the dowry was destroying him and days before the marriage new demands for cash. 10.16.42 Mr Sharma Fifty-five thousand. This I got in cash from bank, out of this fifty-five, fifty thousand I gave to him in cash. Then this money seventy-five thousand, this I paid him in cheque. 10.16.57 Adam Mynott Right. I mean you, you, you were breaking the law doing that weren't you because the law in this country is that you should not give more than five thousand rupees of gifts. 10.17.07 Mr Sharma Nobody follows that law. 10.17.10 Adam Mynott That law is ignored. 10.17.12 Mr Sharma Otherwise nobody would be able to marry each other because the rules of this society are different and the rules on paper are different. 10.17.20 Adam Mynott You had to borrow to do this? How many years will it take you to, to pay off your debts? 10.17.26 Mr Sharma This will go all through my life. 10.17.28 Adam Mynott The rest of your life? 10.17.29 Mr Sharma Yeah. 10.17.33 Music 10.17.34 Adam Mynott The wedding, the dowry, the gifts, it added up the Sharma's say to about fifteen thousand pounds and the Singh's were still going on about the car - the Toyota Qualis. 10.17.45 Adam Mynott This car, that was what… 10.17.46 Brother Toyota Qualis. 10.17.46 Adam Mynott …part of, part of the dowry? 10.17.48 Brother They had asked it before the marriage but they had been refused. But after, right after the marriage they started behaving in just opposite way, they started saying, you know, you have to give car, how will my son travel without a car. 10.17.59 Music 10.18.01 Adam Mynott The Sharma's say they rejected the demand again. 10.18.05 Adam Mynott Kajal and Anand went to Calcutta and she completed her studies. She complained that Anand was stopping her from revising for her exams. 10.18.16 Adam Mynott She passed them and they returned to Delhi and moved into the Singh family home. Kajal was still being pressed for more dowry. 10.18.23 Music 10.18.26 Brother She was crying the day she called me up and she was telling that Anand was creating problems and he was telling you have to bring the car. You have to pressurise your parents. 10.18.37 Adam Mynott A day later the phone rang. Something was seriously wrong. 10.18.43 Brother It was in the evening of the ninth of June when her husband, he called me and told me to reach their house as early as possible. I asked him what is the matter then he told me on the telephone. 10.18.55 Adam Mynott He told you on the phone. 10.18.56 Brother And he said it in a very casual… 10.18.58 Adam Mynott What did he say? 10.18.59 Brother He just said look, we had gone, I had gone out and she had not taken her dinner, she said I don't want to eat. So I went out and when I came back I found her hanging. He just said it as a matter of fact. 10.19.11 Adam Mynott Kajal was dead; hanged in her bedroom. 10.19.12 Aston AAJTAK TV 9TH June 2003 10.19.19 Adam Mynott On the news her father-in-law was filmed saying she'd tied a scarf round her neck and then hanged herself from a door handle. 10.19.27 Adam Mynott Kajal's brother, a doctor, says it couldn’t have been suicide. 10.19.32 Brother You must realise that it was my brother who had first reached her; he reached her at about seven o'clock. Death has taken place around three, three or something, no police had been called, not even a medical professional had been called because you have to see whether the person is actually dead or not. He may be in a state of coma or something. Though my brother only called the police, they were not willing to call the police, they were just wanting to take the body and cremate it so that all the evidence was gone. They had already cut open the ligatures and removed the body. Whatever they say that she was hanging from there and she was hanging from there that is up to them we haven't seen anything. 10.20.10 Adam Mynott In spite of getting no help from the police, who they think had been bribed, Kajal's family filed a case alleging dowry crime. Anand and his parents were arrested at their home and taken away to Tihar Jail. 10.20.11 Aston AAJTAK TV 14TH June 2003 10.20.27 Adam Mynott The investigating judge appeared to share the Sharma's suspicions. 10.20.33 Adam Mynott So, so this, what's this saying here? 10.20.35 Mr Sharma Well this is not a case of suicide simply cited but has categorical reference to her harassment on account of dowry. 10.20.44 Adam Mynott So what we've got here is, is one judge rejecting an application from Doctor Singh and the rest of the family for bail and then a few days later they were released on a technicality. 10.21.06 Smita Choudhary translating Mrs Sharma I want justice, I've made a mistake but I'll never make a mistake again but I didn’t know them, I didn’t recognise them and I want justice now. 10.21.13 Adam Mynott And they feared justice was slipping away because the Singh's were now out of prison. 10.21.19 Adam Mynott We've been trying for days to talk to the Singh's. Every attempt to get in touch with them we've been told is out of the question so I've come here to their house to see if they're in. 10.21.32 Adam Mynott The Singh family had spent three months in Tihar Jail. Doctor BB Singh, a scientist, had been suspended from his job. His son Anand had trained abroad as a doctor but the qualification was not accepted in India and he'd been unable to find any work. 10.21.49 Dog barking 10.21.55 Adam Mynott Doctor BB Singh I'm Adam Mynott from the BBC. We've come to talk to you about… 10.22.00 Doctor BB Singh Please just wait. We will give you all answers. What do you want? 10.22.04 Adam Mynott We just wanted to discuss some of the issues surrounding, surrounding…we just wanted to discuss some of the issues, thank you, thank you very much. 10.22.14 Adam Mynott The Singh's gave me their version of events, very different from the Sharma's; no torture, no harassment, no dowry demands. 10.22.28 Adam Mynott Doctor Singh showed us how he says Kajal killed herself. 10.22.31 Doctor BB Singh …with the neck. She may have sat on this…and pushed it back. When we discovered her body, her body was not on the floor, it was just a little above the floor. So she must have suffocated… 10.22.56 Adam Mynott I'm, I'm, I'm not a forensic scientist but that, that means that there was, there was that length and it seems, it just seems very, very odd to me, it seems very strange. I mean why not hang yourself, If you want to commit suicide, why not hang yourself from the ceiling fan or from a bracket on the wall. Why do it in a way that… 10.23.14 Doctor BB Singh I cannot answer… 10.23.17 Aston ANAND SINGH Husband Only she can answer. She was the one to choose this way; only she can answer why she did it this way. I'm a doctor; she was a doctor. Only she can tell. How can he or how can I say why the hell did she chose this way to die. 10.23.31 Anand Singh I as a doctor can say, yes, this is sufficient height for a person to die. This any doctor can say. This is very surprising her brother also is a doctor and… 10.23.40 Adam Mynott You, you, you were her husband… 10.23.42 Anand Singh Yes I am her husband. 10.23.42 Adam Mynott Did it not, did it not surprise you that your wife could get to this state without, without you being aware of it, without you being aware of the fact she wanted to commit suicide 10.23.52 Anand Singh Listen this is very surprising for everyone. This is a surprise for their family; this is a surprise for my family, for me. Yes, she used to get some depression sometimes after exams. Most of the time it was only when her brother used to call her up. He like, you've got to study, you've got to study, she used to say my brother is saying I'll fail. Everything is going to be all right. I have never prayed to God for my exams as for, as much as I have prayed for her. And I'm like, I have full faith in God and I was very sure she will pass. 10.24.22 Adam Mynott In your opinion was worry about exams that she had enough for her to commit to suicide. 10.24.27 Anand Singh Except for exam I don't find a single reason. I was the most independently close person to her. I haven't found a single more reason that… 10.24.35 Adam Mynott Her, her, her family claim she was being tortured, harassed by your… 10.24.39 Anand Singh For what? 10.24.40 Adam Mynott I don’t know, that's what… 10.24.41 Adam Mynott And what about those constant demands for a brand new Qualis car. 10.24.45 Anand Singh As far as Qualis is concerned we could buy a Qualis the day we want to. What is the point of asking and isn't life of a doctor worth just a Qualis jeep whatever it is, I don’t think so. 10.24.55 Adam Mynott I mean they say that, you know, that Mr Sharma says he had to borrow hundreds of thousands of rupees, which he'll be paying off for the rest of his life. 10.25.03 Anand Singh This is his side of story, absolutely his side of story… 10.25.07 Adam Mynott He's lying then? 10.25.08 Anand Singh Well of course he is. All this case, this case from day one, this is all based on lies. She was my wife; I was supposed to live my life, she was supposed to my partner for the whole of my life. What will I get by killing her or if she dies? Is this a bigger loss for me or for them? For whom? I ask the media, I ask these people, I ask the police, I ask the justice whatever, for whom this loss is. What will I get by her death? 10.25.34 Adam Mynott You're someone who wrote a card to your wife saying; I hate you for your shrewdness. 10.25.40 Anand Singh Yes. 10.25.40 Adam Mynott Is that, is that the sort of relations between you… 10.25.42 Anand Singh And there are, there are twenty lines above that line, which are loving. Is it not? If you've seen that card. 10.25.48 Adam Mynott There are printed ones yes on the card. 10.25.49 Anand Singh Yeah, printed ones. If I had not been having love I wouldn't write that. 10.25.54 Adam Mynott Well you didn't write it, they were printed on the card. 10.25.56 Anand Singh Why would I send it? I could have sent other cards. 10.25.59 Adam Mynott So your, your, so your relations with Kajal were… 10.26.02 Anand Singh Every husband and, you're married. 10.26.04 Adam Mynott I am yes. 10.26.05 Anand Singh Don't you have small conflicts with your wife? 10.26.07 Adam Mynott Well I'm not answering these questions. What… 10.26.09 Anand Singh Same with me. My wife used to have small problems, whatever, she used to get down before exams, I say don’t worry for exams, it's part of life, they come, they go. 10.26.21 Adam Mynott So are you not at all puzzled then about why your wife, your wife committed suicide? 10.26.24 Anand Singh Absolutely not. I'm just broken, my family is broken, that is all. There's no puzzle; I'm very sad that yes, at that fateful moment why was I not at home. Had I been maybe at home I would have …with her, I would have consoled her and everything would have been ok. 10.26.44 Adam Mynott The Singh's say Kajal had been unstable. They accuse her family of neglecting her and deny any dowry extortion. Anand claims he'd have done anything to save her but 'this was her destiny'. 10.26.59 Music 10.27.06 Adam Mynott The Sharma's say the suicide claims are ridiculous. 10.27.10 Adam Mynott The thing they're particularly worried about, one of things is, the handwriting on the suicide note. It says; I'm doing this because of the tension of my exams, I'm responsible for this, no-one is to be held responsible for my death, I've been treated very kindly by my husband and in-laws. Now they say there is no way that their daughter would have written that and also there's no way this is handwriting. 10.27.33 Music 10.27.42 Adam Mynott The Sharma's are worried that the police have now either lost interest or have been bribed to drop the case. 10.27.49 Adam Mynott They don’t know their way around the legal system. 10.27.55 Adam Mynott So they turned to Brinda Karat; a leading campaigner against dowry. 10.28.00 Brinda Karat Subtitles You put a price on your daughter - how could you? What sort of social custom are you talking about? First you educate your daughter… and then you get her killed as a result of a social evil. You and families like yours make me very upset. 10.28.21 Adam Mynott Brinda contacts the lawyers saying this case needs a proper investigation. 10.28.26 Brinda Karat It's a dowry death. 10.28.28 Adam Mynott She's worried the authorities are trying to sweep it under the carpet. 10.28.34 Brinda Karat Subtitles For four hours the body was lying there… and no proper investigation was carried out. This is a crime by itself. This is destruction of evidence. 10.28.54 Adam Mynott Brinda has seen it all before and she doesn't buy the suicide theory either. 10.29.00 Brinda Karat It's very, very unlikely that this girl has written this suicide note and anyway just looking at the handwriting it just doesn’t match. 10.29.08 Woman Even a layperson can make out… 10.29.10 Brinda Karat It just does not match. And secondly the way that the suicide note is framed, I mean three months, two months after the examination she's talking about tension in the examination, it definitely doesn't make any sense. And thirdly from the aspect of the demands for dowry, it's extraordinary, I mean we have seen so many cases, I mean we deal with like I don’t know how many cases but a case where they are giving it in writing before the engagement ceremony that this is what we expect you to bring. I mean it's just so blatant and it just shows how the social sanction that this practice of dowry has. 10.29.56 Brinda Karat They thought that, you know, they're probably going to buy their daughter's happiness, you know. 10.30.02 Brinda Karat Dowry really is a practice of the educated and the richer sections, I mean there's just no getting, it's not related to illiteracy, it's not related to being uneducated. It's very much related to the devaluation of women starting from the upper layers of society. 10.30.25 Adam Mynott Brinda knows the police are weighed down by corruption and bureaucracy. 10.30.31 Adam Mynott First stop Inspector Harish Joshi's office. 10.30.36 Adam Mynott One of the big issues to get the dowry back. They have a half hour meeting, which we're not allowed to film. 10.30.43 Adam Mynott When they come out not much seems to have been achieved. 10.30.49 Adam Mynott So how have you been able to move things on today then? 10.30.52 Inspector Harish Joshi How? Move things; which things? 10.30.55 Adam Mynott With this investigation. 10.30.59 Inspector Harish Joshi Well the investigation means we carry on the investigation. 10.31.03 Adam Mynott What, what have you said to the Sharma's today? 10.31.08 Inspector Harish Joshi Sharma's? 10.31.09 Adam Mynott What have you said to them? How have you, how have you explained to them their case is going? 10.31.14 Inspector Harish Joshi No, I didn't talk to them. I didn't talk to them. 10.31.18 Adam Mynott You've just had a meeting, had a meeting with them, I mean what did you say to them at the meeting? 10.31.21 Inspector Harish Joshi When? 10.31.22 Adam Mynott Just now. 10.31.23 Inspector Harish Joshi We discussed the case that's all. 10.31.26 Adam Mynott Where is the case now? Where does it stand? What is the next move? 10.31.30 Inspector Harish Joshi It's in the court; it's in the court. 10.31.32 Adam Mynott And the issue of dowry retrieval? 10.31.35 Inspector Harish Joshi That is being examined. 10.31.40 Music 10.31.41 Adam Mynott The Sharma's now fear they're dealing with police who are corrupt and disinterested. 10.31.45 Music 10.31.48 Adam Mynott The Women's Police Cell leading the anti-dowry campaign has only one van in Delhi. It answers calls all over a city of fourteen million people. 10.32.01 Adam Mynott It's really impossible to tell how many dowry deaths there are each year. The official figure is somewhere over six and a half thousand. Unofficially though it could be as high as some say twenty-five thousand. Anyway the unit's just been called out to another case; all we know at the moment it involves a woman being burnt, we should find out more when we arrive in a few minutes. 10.32.29 Adam Mynott The Women's Cell relies on being tipped off by the local police who've got to the scene of the crime first. They've already made their minds up what went on. 10.32.39 Adam Mynott So what happened in this case? 10.32.41 Superintendent Vimla Mehra Burnt up. 10.32.42 Policeman Suicide. 10.32.43 Superintendent Vimla Mehra Suicide. Burnt herself. 10.32.49 Adam Mynott Apparently the neighbours heard no argument between the couple and the women's parents aren't here to claim her death was anything other than suicide. 10.32.58 Superintendent Vimla Mehra She's saying you eat food to her husband, but her husband refused because he was ill. Then after, when he went out and… 10.33.07 Policeman She committed suicide. 10.33.09 Adam Mynott So it sounds an odd reason to commit suicide because your husband refuses to eat food. This is the husband here? 10.33.16 Adam Mynott It's often claimed the police are too quick to dismiss a case because of ineptitude or corruption. 10.33.31 Adam Mynott Are you getting the impression that the police have accepted this reason almost without question? 10.33.37 Smita Choudhary I think the police by and large accept anything which is told to them so that they don't have to do much digging and any investigation in depth. They first accept whatever is said and then if somebody makes a noise about it's unacceptability then they… 10.33.51 Adam Mynott Then they start digging, right. 10.33.55 Adam Mynott The paperwork done, the woman's body is driven off to the nearby mortuary. 10.34.04 Adam Mynott Unless a member of this dead woman's family now comes and reports this as a dowry crime this death is almost certainly just going to become another meaningless statistic. 10.34.22 Adam Mynott Who knows what actually happened to this woman. Suicide? An accident? Murder? I have no idea and the police are apparently not very interested in finding out. 10.34.34 Adam Mynott The body will be cremated later today. And the husband will go back to his home. Case closed. 10.34.43 Adam Mynott Women are killed in India in horrifying numbers because the chance of anyone being prosecuted is remote and the men can go off and marry again and get another dowry. 10.35.01 Adam Mynott In hospitals in Delhi there are case after case of burned women while dowry demands are getting bigger and bigger. 10.35.09 Adam Mynott Could you just, literally just tell us, tell us what happened? 10.35.17 Adam Mynott Anokhi is desperately ill. She has eighty percent burns to her body. 10.35.25 Smita Choudhary Her sister-in-law caught her hands from the back and mother-in-law poured kerosene over her and they set her on fire. 10.35.35 Adam Mynott Anokhi is the classic dowry victim; not pretty enough, her dowry wasn't big enough and then on top of everything she gave birth to a girl. 10.35.44 Smita Choudhary She went, she was sent home forcibly she says three years back and then her parents went to her in-laws place to say that you should take her back. They wouldn't do that. So I asked her why they did not take you back. She says they just said that they didn't like me. 10.36.02 Adam Mynott So basically, you know, her husband's family didn't like her so they, they burnt her, set her on fire. 10.36.07 Smita Choudhary Yeah. 10.36.12 Adam Mynott Anokhi's father has been sitting at her bedside for four months. He says what's the point of getting the police involved, nothing would happen, it would just cause more trouble for my family. 10.36.25 Adam Mynott And they're not prepared to press charges now because they're frightened of what might happen. 10.36.29 Smita Choudhary Yeah. I mean if they can burn her then they can do anything. 10.36.38 Adam Mynott Do you get many cases like this? 10.36.41 Doctor This particular issue I don’t think we get so many cases, we have got plenty of cases like this. 10.36.47 Adam Mynott Of women being burned in similar circumstances? 10.36.51 Doctor Most of the cases are women being burned by stove only. 10.36.58 Adam Mynott I mean, you know, this, this woman claims she was burnt by her in-laws. 10.37.01 Doctor No she is not saying that. 10.37.04 Adam Mynott Well she said her mother-in-law did it. 10.37.06 Doctor She is not saying… 10.37.07 Adam Mynott That's what she just said to us. 10.37.09 Smita Choudhary The statement, the statement she has given is not that. The police statement is that she, it's an accident. 10.37.16 Doctor It's an accident, that's what she said. 10.37.18 Adam Mynott What she says to the police but what she's saying to us is that she was, she was burned by her in-laws. 10.37.22 Doctor I have talked to her, I have talked to her father, they are both saying the same thing, it's an accident. 10.37.27 Adam Mynott Does it puzzle you as a, as a burns doctor there are loads and loads of these accidents involving cooking, doesn't happen anywhere else in the world in the same way. 10.37.35 Doctor It's not happening anywhere else in the world but the main thing is that the stove that they are using is particular stove. 10.37.41 Adam Mynott I know, I mean you're doing wonderful things to look after her but it just seems that, you know, there are so many cases like this, this woman, I mean why do you think she's giving us a different version of events? 10.37.51 Doctor I don’t know. 10.37.52 Adam Mynott Is she frightened? 10.37.55 Doctor I don’t know. 10.37.57 Adam Mynott I mean you realise when you come and see a, what is a really sickening case like this that their, the odds against this sort of thing ever being sorted out are totally stacked against them. You've got a girl here who said she was burnt by her family, she and her father don’t want to go to the police, there seems to be a reluctance by the system to investigate it and you're left realising the whole thing is hopeless. 10.38.28 Adam Mynott Her father said he hoped she'd recover. 10.38.32 Adam Mynott But Anokhi died a week later. 10.38.35 Adam Mynott Afterwards, off camera, the doctor admitted that most of the burns cases were dowry crimes. And Anokhi's case remains as listed - a kitchen accident. 10.38.49 Siren/music 10.38.57 Adam Mynott The Women's Police Cell in its solitary van are out on call again. But they spend much of their time dealing with trivial cases. There's been a report that a woman has tried to commit suicide because of dowry demands by her husband. 10.39.13 Adam Mynott But when we arrive an hour later that story's been disputed. The parents say their daughter-in-law has been using the dowry law to blackmail them. 10.39.23 Woman Subtitles Look around at these people. Everyone is here and they all support us. They all know what we're like. 10.39.30 Officer Subtitles Once she's spoken to me about her marriage, then I will know… if there are any grounds for harassment charges. 10.39.39 Music 10.39.41 Adam Mynott The police have little doubt that the in-laws were telling the truth. They go to the hospital where the woman has admitted herself. 10.39.50 Adam Mynott And they find that she'd taken only two sleeping pills; an attempt to put pressure on her husband to give her money. She hates her in-laws. 10.40.01 Wife Subtitles At first my mother-in-law seemed really nice… but I always feel as if I have done something wrong in her eyes. In her heart, she's evil and sly. She has a brain like a computer. She insults everyone all day long, even her own son. 10.40.20 Adam Mynott Because the woman alleged dowry abuse the Women's Police Unit had to answer the call. Valuable hours wasted on exactly the sort of case they shouldn't be dealing with. Meanwhile serious dowry crime all over the city is ignored. It was like this night after night. 10.40.44 Adam Mynott The flood of dowry cases coming to the Women's Cell never stops. 10.40.50 Adam Mynott Even when they're effective the police are working with laws that everyone ignores. 10.40.59 Adam Mynott There have been some recent and high profile cases of young women resisting dowry demands; calling off their marriages on the wedding day. But these are the exceptions. 10.41.12 Brinda Karat What are the men doing? Why aren't the young men outraged by this? And they're not and in fact precisely because they are not and they are complicit in this practice, which is nothing but a death warrant for a young woman, it's the practice. It's not just at the end of the time the killing, it's the, and if there's no resistance from young men of this practice that where really the problem lies. 10.41.39 Bell 10.41.42 Adam Mynott The Sharma's have little reason for optimism. The police appear to have dropped the Kajal investigation. The suicide note hasn't been examined, Doctor Singh's gone back to work and the Sharma's haven't got the dowry back. 10.41.59 Bell 10.42.05 Adam Mynott The Sharma's, along with other middleclass families, had agreed to barter off their daughter. A husband bought in exchange for large sums of money and then constant pressure for more. By agreeing to play the dowry system they and others contribute to the injustice in Indian society that they say they are fighting. 10.42.29 Brinda Karat As far as the delivery of justice is concerned we certainly have a very long way to go as far as cases and atrocities against women are concerned. There's a very low rate of conviction in India and we, we want to ensure that the Sharma case is not just another statistic to prove how unjust the system is. 10.42.51 Adam Mynott Do you feel like giving up? 10.42.54 Mr Sharma Not giving up. I'm not going to give up. I will fight to the end. Without hoping for the good result or bad result like that. 10.42.04 Adam Mynott Do you think money's the main thing? 10.43.05 Mr Sharma Yeah, yeah, yeah. The most important thing is money. 10.43.09 Adam Mynott Because I know your wife's said right from the beginning all she wants is justice; will you ever get justice? 10.43.13 Mr Sharma No I have got very little hope. 00.43.18 End music 00.43.22 Voice over You can comment on tonight’s programme by logging on to: www.bbc.co.uk/correspondent Credits 00.43.20 Reporter ADAM MYNOTT Additional Camera RAVI LEKHI SANJAY GANGULY PHIL GOODWIN Dubbing Mixer PHITZ HEARNE VT Editor GARETH WILLIAMS Production Team JULIA DANNENBERG SARAH EVA SARAH HANKS AGNES TEEK Production Manager JANE WILLEY Unit Manager SUSAN CRIGHTON Film Research NICK DODD Research SMITA CHOUDHARY Picture Editor MARK COLLINS Filmed and Directed by FRANCIS SMITH Deputy Editor DAVID BELTON 00.43.32 Voice over Correspondent will be back in two weeks. 00.43.41 CORRESPONDENT 00.43.43 Editor KAREN O’CONNOR © BBC MMIII 00.43.51 End BBC Correspondent 1 1