Grisly torture for dowry
In-laws held her tight, poured acid into her mouth and forced her to gulp it down as her father failed to give them Tk 4 lakh as promised dowry.
This was the culmination of the torture Ripa Rani Pandit, 23, had been suffering since her marriage with Ratan Pandit, of Adompur in Kotiadi upazila under Kishoreganj district, nearly eight months back.
Ratan stood nearby as the tragedy unfolded on Sunday, said Ripa's maternal aunt Baby Pandit who has been attending to her at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
The severity of her injury is hard to define because it is mostly internal, doctors said.
However, they said she was between life and death and would be kept on a saline drip for the next three weeks. If she improves then only she will be allowed to have food or drink.
Ripa's in-laws Rabindra Pandit and Kalyani Pandit themselves took her to a Kishoreganj hospital and then shifted her to DMCH on Monday.
But as the police at the DMCH outpost, seeing her marks of burn from her lips down, began asking how Ripa had suffered such injuries, they fled.
Ripa's father who has a small clothing store at Netrokona gave her in-laws Tk 1.1 lakh and two tolas of gold ornament while marrying her off to Ratan, said her brother Opu at the hospital.
Since the marriage, Ratan's parents were pressurising Ripa's poor father to pay them the remaining amount. She spent more than five months at her parents' home after the marriage due to repeated torture by in-laws for dowry.
In recent weeks, the persecution went out of bounds.
On Saturday night when Ripa was talking with her father by phone, Ratan came home, and at one point snatched the cell phone from her and broke it, Baby said quoting Ripa as saying.
The couple then had an argument.
Ratan and his parents the next day at noon entered Ripa's room and dragged her to the next room of their house.
Kalyani held her hands and opened her mouth while Rabindra poured some liquid from a bottle.
Ripa told Baby that as she swallowed the liquid she felt everything inside her started burning.
Rabindra, being a jewellery shop worker, used to keep acid at home, she said.
Once Ripa's health improves, her family will file a lawsuit against her husband and in-laws, said her brother Opu.
Contacted, Hedayetul Islam Bhuiyan, officer-in-charge of Kotiadi Police Station, said that being informed of the incident, they searched for Ripa's in-laws but found their house locked.
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