Sixteen years after an Indian teen penned a letter smeared with her own blood pleading for the execution of the man who burned her mother alive, the killer was brought to justice.
A court sentenced their father Manoj Bansal to life in prison based on the eyewitness statements of Latika Bansal, who is now 21 years old, and her younger sister.
The daughters testified in court that their father had previously beaten their mother for “not having a son.”
Bansal asserted that his wife committed suicide and refuted the allegations.
The court in Bulandshahr city, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, decided on Wednesday that Bansal was responsible for killing his wife because she “had not given birth to a boy.”
The traditional presumption that a son would uphold the family legacy and care for the parents in old age, as opposed to a daughter, who would cost them dowries and depart for her married residences, is the basis for India’s preference for males.
The removal of tens of millions of female foetuses by sex-selective abortions, also known as female foeticide, is said to be the reason for India’s radically skewed sex ratio and the mistreatment and bad treatment of girl children.
The Bansal sisters described in court during the trial how they had come of age witnessing their father and his family frequently ridicule and physically abuse their mother Anu Bansal for having only daughters.
The court was also informed that Anu had been compelled to have six abortions after illegal sex tests revealed she was expecting a girl.
The sister claimed that on the morning of June 14, 2016, when their father reportedly had the cooperation of his relatives, who dispute the accusations made against them, doused their mother in kerosene and set her ablaze, their lives were forever altered.
“We were awakened at 6:30 a.m. by our mother’s cries. Since the door to our room was closed from the outside, we were unable to assist her. We observed her burning “The girls stated in their trial court testimony.
When their calls to the local police and ambulance services went unanswered, according to Latika, they contacted their grandmother and maternal uncle, who promptly showed up and drove their mother to the hospital.
Anu Bansal sustained 80 per cent burns, according to the medical professionals who cared for her. Soon after, she passed away in the hospital.
Only after the sisters, who were then 15 and 11, wrote a letter to the chief minister at the time, Akhilesh Yadav, accusing him of converting the murder case to one of suicide, did their cause gain attention.
As a result of the local police investigator’s suspension for failing to conduct a thorough investigation, Mr. Yadav instructed senior law enforcement and administrative officials to oversee the matter.
He said that during the past six years, the sisters had attended court “more than 100 times” and “never missed a single date,” saying that it was “unusual for daughters to pursue a case towards their own father and eventually get justice.”
Mr. Sharma continued by saying that he didn’t charge the family any money because they were struggling financially and also because he wanted to draw attention to a social problem.
“This is more than just a woman being killed. This is an act of social injustice “He told me. “Why should a mother be tormented and penalized when she has no control over determining the gender of a child? This is wrong.”
