AT INDIA’s largest burns centre in Victoria Hospital, Bangalore, a macabre scene is played out with horrifying regularity. A badly burnt woman is brought in by her husband and in-laws. The woman claims a kerosene stove burst in the kitchen, and the doctor notes her statement. Hours or days later she dies, and the police dismiss the case as an accident.
A new study, the first of its kind, provides appalling proof of what many in India already acknowledge – that many of these “accidents” are in fact dowry-related murders or forced suicides, acts of unimaginable violence against wives who can’t meet their husbands’ and in-laws’ demands for yet more money. The study suggests that in spite of India’s strict anti-dowry laws and long-running campaigns by women’s groups, incidents like these are on the rise across India.
Worse still, the guilty nearly always go unpunished, experts told żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ, either because police and forensic pathologists fail to investigate the cases, or because rampant corruption scuttles them at a later stage. Women’s rights activists, doctors, lawyers and judges are demanding strict enforcement of the existing laws. Otherwise thousands of women will suffer a brutal death and millions more will continue to endure violence and intimidation.
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The study was carried out by Baldev Raj Sharma, a medical-legal expert at the Government Medical College Hospital’s department of forensic medicine in Chandigarh, Punjab, and his colleagues. His analysis of 385 burn deaths at his hospital between 1994 and 2001 shows that most of the 292 women who died were not victims of kitchen accidents (Burns, vol 28, p 250). What’s more, the numbers are rising. In 1994, burns accounted for 12 per cent of post-mortems at the hospital. In 2001, the figure had jumped to nearly 30 per cent.
However, the police reports Sharma examined concluded that 97 per cent of the women were burnt in accidents in the kitchen, usually due to a burst kerosene stove. Yet in some of their homes, kerosene wasn’t even used in the kitchens. And while most kitchen accidents cause burns on the arms, chest and abdomen, many of these women suffered 80 to 90 per cent burns. “How can that be accidental?” asks Sharma. “The most alarming thing is that it is young females who are involved. They are newly married, or within five years of marriage.”
In traditional Indian homes, girls learn to cook when they are around 13, which is when you might expect the most accidents to occur. Most burns victims in the West are children and the elderly. In stark contrast, only 4 per cent of the deaths studied by Sharma were among girls younger than 15 (see Table). The number jumps to 16 per cent for women aged 16 to 20 – the age at which most women marry – and to 28 per cent for those aged 21 to 25. The most damning statistic is that every one of the married women was burned in her in-laws’ home. “That speaks for itself,” says Sharma.
Why then, in the face of seemingly overwhelming evidence, do the guilty nearly always go free? The problem is not with the anti-dowry laws – they are stringent enough, says N. R. Madhava Menon, one of India’s foremost legal experts and vice-chancellor of the West Bengal National University of Juridical Studies in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). “The villain of the piece is the investigation,” says Menon.
And the problem starts with the woman’s dying declaration. “There is a belief that the dying will not lie. It’s a legal presumption,” says L. Thirunavukkarasu of St John’s Medical College in Bangalore, who performed many post-mortems on burns victims when he was head of forensics at Victoria Hospital.
Invariably, the victim is brought to hospital by her husband and her in-laws, the very people who may have tried to kill her or forced her to attempt suicide (the law treats those responsible as guilty in both cases). The woman is told that her own parents will be hurt if she doesn’t say it was an accident, or is beseeched to consider the fate of her children if she dies and her husband goes to jail, or warned that she will have to come back home if she survives. “Even if I send the in-laws outside, she’ll invariably lie. As a doctor, I ask for the statement, and I record it,” says Thirunavukkarasu.
However, many women survive long after they have given their first statement. In fact, Sharma found that fewer than 4 per cent of the women died within an hour because of shock, while more than half survived for anywhere from three days to over a week before succumbing to infections.
Sometimes, in the hours or days before her death, the woman reveals that she tried to commit suicide after being unbearably tormented at home, or even accuses her husband and in-laws of trying to kill her. In such cases, the courts are forced to consider all her statements and look at other evidence.
Some evidence comes from the post-mortem, which must be performed on the body of any woman who died an unnatural death within seven years of marriage. And experienced forensic pathologists can usually tell whether burns are accidental from their nature and extent. Yet even then the system fails, says Thirunavukkarasu.
The problem is that such evidence is not enough in itself. But because the police invariably do not start investigations until the woman dies, supporting evidence from the scene is usually lost. Simple facts such as whether there really was a kerosene stove that burst, or whether the incident even happened in the kitchen, are sometimes not established, says Thirunavukkarasu. “It should be completely obligatory on the part of the police to take the help of the forensic scientists and forensic pathologists. If they don’t, they should have to explain why they didn’t,” he says.
There are problems with the post-mortems too. For instance, hospitals in Bangalore do not have a standard procedure for burns victims. And sometimes, if a doctor has determined the cause of death – hanging or burning, say – forensic pathologists do not perform further tests. “Suppose her blood contains lots of barbiturates. How do you account for it?” asks Thirunavukkarasu.
Investigations are also hampered by apathy in government hospitals, according to Donna Fernandes, founder of Vimochana, a Bangalore-based women’s rights organisation (the name means liberation). Until two years ago, Victoria Hospital’s burns ward was like a railway station, she says. People wandered in and out as they pleased, and staff had to be bribed to change sheets or give injections. “It was a hell-hole,” says Fernandes. And this remains the state of many hospitals across the country. However, after years of campaigning Vimochana has forced the authorities to transform Victoria’s burns unit. It’s now an air-conditioned modern facility with social workers on hand to ensure that the women are treated – and also to protect them if they decide to tell the truth.
Most deaths of young women in the city are still dismissed as accidents, though. “According to the reported deaths – and they are all under-reported – almost 100 women die every month in Bangalore [of unnatural causes such as hanging, poisoning or burns].” And 70 to 80 per cent of these deaths are deemed accidental, says Fernandes. “The interest and commitment to find out the truth are not there.”
As a consequence, official figures on dowry-deaths don’t mean much. The National Crime Records Bureau in Delhi reported about 6000 dowry deaths a year in the 1990s. Unofficial estimates are much higher. Himendra Thakur of the US-based International Society against Dowry and Bride-Burning in India estimated in 1999 that nearly 25,000 women are murdered or forced to commit suicide every year.
Aside from sheer negligence, corruption at all levels is sabotaging efforts to crack down on the culprits. According to Justice Michael Saldanha of the Karnataka High Court in Bangalore – the highest court of law in the state – police officers and doctors are sometimes influenced through family or political connections, or bribed to falsely document the case, leading to inconsistencies between the various pieces of evidence that undermine the case. “One good ground, and the dying declaration is shot down, and the accused is acquitted,” says Saldanha.
Corruption can even extend as far as the public prosecutor. “When they don’t succeed with the police and the doctor, they get hold of the prosecutor,” says Saldanha. “And he’ll very cleverly sabotage the case. He’ll not produce some vital document. Or he’ll keep back some vital witness.” The problem is so bad that in Karnataka state an astounding 97 per cent of the accused in dowry death cases are acquitted. And after appeals to the High Court, the acquittals reach nearly 99 per cent. This problem affects the entire country, creating a climate in which some men feel they can get away with murder.
So how can the violence be stopped? “You’ve got to ruthlessly implement the law,” says Saldanha. He points out that under Indian law, the sentences handed down in the few prosecutions that do succeed are less than those for normal murders. “If for murder you provide capital punishment, why should you not provide capital punishment for this? This is far more horrifying.”
Saldanha adds that one section of India’s anti-dowry law states that if a woman dies, any property or wealth given as a dowry should be returned to her own family, regardless of whether her husband was convicted or acquitted. “Judges in India had totally overlooked [that] section.” As a result, when the case fails, the husband and in-laws are left with the loot. And that gives them a tremendous appetite to do it again. He hopes enforcing this provision will end what has become a sickening business for some.
But the deaths won’t stop unless people really want them to. Menon says the public doesn’t support the police enough, by testifying as witnesses, for instance, or providing evidence. “Society will have to take a leading role and revolt against this, and see that the system is taken to its logical end.”