Woman, one-year-old daughter burnt alive in suspected case of dowry death

A young woman and her one-year-old daughter were burnt alive at Samastipur in Bihar on Wednesday allegedly by her in-laws who had been harassing her for dowry, police said. The incident took place at Musapur village under Sarairanjan block in the district where the woman and her daughter were drenched in kerosene before being set afire, Superintendent of Police, Samastipur, Deepak Ranjan said.

An FIR has been lodged on the basis of complaint of victim's father who has named her daughter's husband, father-in-law, mother-in-law and brother-in-law as accused. The Nitish Kumar government has launched a campaign against dowry from Gandhi Jyanti day this year. In the FIR it has been alleged that the victim was married to Hazari Pandit four years ago and although her father had given dowry, her in-laws had been demanding a bike and harassing her for the same.

Police have taken away the bodies for post-mortem and the SHO of the police station concerned has been asked to arrest the accused, who have fled their home, at the earliest, the SP said.