Woman’s in-laws arrested after suicide

The in-laws of a 24-year-old woman who committed suicide were arrested on Sunday for alleged dowry harassment after some Deonar residents held up traffic at Deonar signal on the Ghatkopar-Mankhurd link road for about two hours. The police had to resort to lathi charge to disperse the protesters but in the process some policemen were also injured when local residents resorted to stone pelting.

Officials said a group of residents of Deonar created a blockade on the Ghatkopar-Mankhurd link road, creating a traffic jam for two hours on Sunday around at 4 pm. The residents kept the dead body of Yasmin Khan, 24, on an ice-slab on the road and demanded the immediate arrest of the deceased woman’s in-laws and wanted them booked for murder. Yasmin committed suicide on April 22 by hanging herself due to alleged dowry harassment from her in-laws. When the police tried to control the crowd and asked them to vacate the area, the angry crowd started pelting stones and footwear at the police.

The Deonar police has registered a dowry case against the deceased woman’s in-laws and later arrested her mother-in-law Akhtarun Nisha Khan, father-in-law Akbarali Khan and brother-in-law Chand Khan; her husband Akram Khan is in Saudi Arabia.

A police official said, “Yasmin was married to Akram, a truck driver, in 2012. After a few months of their marriage Akram and his family members asked Yasmin to get her father to buy a four-wheeler. When Yasmin’s family could not do that they started asking money every now and then. When she could not satisfy their demands the in-laws secretly conducted Akram’s second wedding. When Yasmin came to know about this, she filed a police complaint, although Akram convinced her he would leave everything for her if she would take back her complaint. Just two months later, Akram fled to Saudi Arabia without informing her. He called her up later and told her he would return for her if is she brought money from her family”.

According to the statements of Khan’s neighbours recorded by the police, Yasmin’s mother-in-law and father-in-law beat her up on Friday and asked her to bring money from her home. Yasmin then left her in-laws’ house and committed suicide at her parents’ place.