If being inhuman can be described in any particular way, this could be it. A woman from Kerala died allegedly of starvation enforced by her husband and mother-in-law because she didn't bring the dowry. The magnitude of the cruelty can be fathomed by the fact that when 27-year-old women breathed her last, she just weighed 20 kg.
The appalling cruelty took the life of Thushara, a native of Karunagappally who was denied food by her husband and his family died in a government hospital in Kollam, the police said.?
The police said that she was reduced to a? "bag of a skeleton" as she was forced to survive on soaked rice and sugar syrup, the police said after postmortem report and talking to neighbours.
Representational Image
The police said that women died on the midnight of March 21 due to illness and uneasiness and she?weighed only 20 kg at the time of her death, the police said.
The victim Thushara's husband Chandulal and her mother-in-law Geetha Lal were arrested and remanded.?
The police came?to know about the torture the victim was subjected to after the probe it conducted after her death.? "She looked like a bag of skeleton with hardly any flesh on her body. She weighed just 20 kg. A detailed inquiry has thrown light to the cruelty. Her relatives alleged that the torture was to get more dowry," a police official told PTI.
The victim's mother Vijayalakshmi alleged the accused had been torturing her daughter for the last five years and hadn't even allowed the family to meet her for one year.
"My daughter had suffered gruesome torture. We did not give any police complaint as we feared it would put my daughter's life in danger," she said.
Representational Image
The neighbours also told police that the victim was tortured mentally and physically by husband and mother-in-law. The couple got married in 2013 and the family of the victim had given gold jewellery and had also promised to give Rs 2 lakh later. Chandulal used to do odd jobs other than welding work.
The deceased is survived by two children. One of them is three years old and one is 1.5 years, the police informed.
(With PTI inputs)