‘Dowry’ death: Noida woman’s kin stage dharna at CM house

Bhopal: Family members of the 31-year-old Noida woman, who died allegedly by suicide at her in-laws’ house in Katara Hills locality here on May 12 night, staged a brief dharna outside the chief minister’s official residence on Sunday after they were not allowed to meet him.They also had arguments with the police personnel posted at the CM House before they were persuaded to leave the place.The woman was married to the son of a retired principal district judge of Bhopal barely five months ago. Her brother is an Indian Army major. The woman’s family has accused the woman judge and her lawyer son of harassing the woman for dowry, physically assaulting her and destroying evidence.An FIR was registered in the case belatedly on Friday against the former judge and her son. However, the retired judge got an anticipatory bail from a sessions court the same evening and the anticipatory bail application of her son will come up for hearing on Monday.In the police records, he is absconding as of now.The autopsy report of the deceased conducted at AIIMS, Bhopal, says that she died because of hanging but also points out the presence of simple injury marks at some places on her body.The family of the deceased has refused to take her body for last rites and insists on taking the body to AIIMS, Delhi, for a repeat autopsy.“We shall not get justice here. They don’t want to let us take her body to Delhi. We had gone to meet the chief minister, but we were not allowed to enter the CM House. We held a symbolic dharna there. We shall continue the dharna at some other place. Being new to this place, we don’t know where it could be staged but we shall continue our protest,” said Navnidhi Sharma, father of the deceased. Police on Saturday constituted a six-member special investigation team (SIT) headed by ACP Rajnish Kashyap to investigate the case. Talking to TOI after the SIT was announced, Kashyap said, “We will investigate all aspects of the case. As of now, we are trying to arrest the accused husband and teams have been deployed.”Post-Mortem ReportA copy of the post-mortem report conducted at AIIMS Bhopal, accessed by TOI earlier, stated that the woman died due to “antemortem hanging by ligature”. The report also noted multiple simple injuries on other parts of the body, possibly caused by blunt force. Blood and viscera samples have been preserved for toxicological analysis, while nail clippings were secured for DNA examination. The report further recorded that the ligature material was “neither present in situ nor submitted” for examination.Earlier ProtestsThe family earlier staged protests outside Katara Hills police station and later at the women’s police station, alleging inaction and demanding registration of a criminal case. Her brother, an Indian Army major, also sought intervention from senior authorities over the alleged delay in registration of the FIR.Police sources said investigators are examining all forensic, digital and circumstantial evidence as part of the SIT probe.