The case of Sangeeta Goel has been pending in the Indian courts since 1994. Her family has filed a murder suit against her in-laws. Both the offering and receipt of dowry are criminal offenses in India and bride burning is punishable my imprisonment, sometimes for life. More on the legal aspects in part II of this programme. If a bride's family has not met the dowry demand in full or additional demands for it, relatives of the bride will pour kerosene oil over the bride and set her afire hoping it will pass for a suicide or an accident in the kitchen.
Many theories abound regarding the origins of dowry in India.
When the aggression occurred, parents did not want their child ren, their daughters particularly, to be raped in their presence. So they rather prefer that their daughter gets married and goes to the in-laws place and that way they don't witness this cruel crime against their own daughters. Now once that happened, automatically, it means the parents will give them money support because the daughter is still a young one and so child marriages also became a part of this distorted system. It is not simply equality, it is becoming one with each other. It is the symbol of Shiva in which half of the body of Shiva is male and half of the body of Shiva is female and that is the idea of the unity in the marriage of Hindus.