This summer a district court for the village of Lowakhurd in the north Indian state of Haryana sentenced Sunita's husband and in-laws to life imprisonment for the pitiless murder. Sunita's story is unusual, but not because she was killed by her husband and his family. Rather, hers is the rare case of wife murder for which the attackers were prosecuted and punished. It is perhaps the world's most horrific example of how women can be fatally caught in the collision of modern consumerism and established cultural mores. Although some attribute this to the fact that more cases are now being reported, most activists believe that even the recent figures represent only a third of the actual number of such murders.
Bodies are hurriedly cremated, or in- laws bribe officials to report the death as an accident.
In the great majority of dowry killings that are reported, the murderous relatives escape punishment by paying bribes and manipulating sluggish legal processes. But that is the nearly invariable motive. Often the in-laws continue to extort more goods after the wedding. And increasingly, when their demands can no longer be met, they murder the bride by strangling or poisoning her, or, quite commonly, by burning her to pass it off as a kitchen accident. Then the son can remarry and make demands for, say, a washing machine or a motor scooter from his new wife's parents.