Bengaluru – which prides itself as the city of IT and development – has to its shame the highest number of cases registered under the Dowry Prohibition Act among Indian metros in 2018. What’s more – the highest number of dowry deaths among southern metros were also reported from Bengaluru.
According to NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data from 2018 which was released on Thursday, 53 women died due to dowry in Bengaluru in 2018, compared to seven deaths in Chennai, 17 in Hyderabad, and one in Kochi. While Bengaluru topped this list in the south, pan-
India, dowry proved most fatal in Delhi with 137 victims. In 2017 too, Bengaluru had reported 53 victims of dowry death, the highest in south India.
Bengaluru also had the highest number of cases (692) reported under the Dowry Prohibition Act in 2018, out of a total of 851 cases reported in the country. This is a whopping 81.3% of pan-India cases.
The 2017 data shows that Bengaluru had the highest number of dowry cases registered in the country under the Dowry Prohibition Act by a far margin. Out of a total 951 victims of dowry in 2017 in India, 77% were in Bengaluru.
Outlawed in 1961, dowry continues to a rampant problem in India. And while NCRB numbers tell an alarming tale, there are many cases that go unreported. What compounds the problem is the pressure women continue to face to remain in abusive marriages, including where there is dowry harassment. TNM reported earlier that it is quite common for families to send women back to their husband’s house even if they are harassment and/or abuse there.
Gruesome crimes against women for dowry are frequently reported in the media. For instance, in 2017 a woman’s father-in-law killed allegedly her so that his son could marry again for more dowry. The case was reported in Tamil Nadu, and the victim was a chartered accountant whose parents kept sending her back to the marital home even after several accounts of harassment. She paid with her life.
In May 2019, a man was arrested for marrying several women in south India for dowry, and then abandoning them. He used to meet the women on matrimonial sites, get married to them in a small ceremony, and get large sums of money from them after sexually exploiting them. Then, he would abandon the woman and move on to entrap another.