Andhra Pradesh: Dowry demand pushes woman to end life

VIJAYAWADA: Unable to bear with repeated dowry harassments from her husband and in-laws, a mother of two hung herself to death at Vyvaaka village under Mudinepalli police station limits on Thursday late night.

The deceased, Vegisetty Prasanthi (28), hailed from Gudur mandal and was married to Nagababu since 12 years. Prasanthi’s parents had earlier given Nagababu `50,000 cash and a half-acre land as dowry. Despite that, Nagababu started pressurising Prasanthi for more dowry and wanted to sell off the land given by her parents. That was when she filed a dowry harassment case against her husband in 2015, which was later settled outside court.

The mother of the victim, P Rajyalakshmi, in a complaint on Friday alleged that Nagababu and his mother were harassing her daughter for more dowry that forced her to take the extreme step. “My daughter ended her life by hanging herself from the roof of her room as she was being tormented by her in-laws for dowry. They should be punished severely,” she said.

Upon receiving the information, Mudinepalli sub-inspector V Rajendra Prasad visited the scene and sent the body to Gudivada government hospital for postmortem. “We have filed a case of dowry death under IPC Section 304B. We’ve detained the suspects and will arrest them soon,” he said.