NEW DELHI, Aug 25: The seven-year old boy has kept chanting his mother was burnt alive by his father and grandmother in front of him and that he saw it all, a sight that haunts him now, according to the boy’s maternal grandfather.
In the face of the contradictory claims by the two sides of the gruesome murder of Nikki Bhati in Greater Noida, the boy’s testimony stands out as the principal evidence of the heinous crime. The 28-year old Nikki Bhati, was allegedly killed over a dowry demand of Rs 36 lakh, nine years after she married Vipin Bhati, The victim’s 7-year old son is now with her parents.
“I will bring him up as well as I can. He cries every evening thinking of his mother. He keeps saying, ‘They burnt my mother,'” victim’s father, Bhikari Singh Payla, said. Her in-laws, however, had claimed that the woman committed suicide and they never raised any demand for dowry. All the four family members of the victim’s in-laws, including the principal accused Vipin Bhati, and his father, mother and the elder brother, who is also the husband of Nikki’s elder sister Kanchan, have been arrested on charge of the murder.
Kanchan who was married in the same family, claimed Nikki was burnt alive in front of her eyes as she failed to get them Rs 36 lakh in dowry. She claimed that her in-laws assaulted her as well for dowry. Nikki’s family has said that Vipin and Rohit, husbands of Nikki and Kanchan, respectively, were unemployed and lived off their father’s grocery shop.
Nikki and Kanchan opened a salon and boutique business to become financially independent, the brothers started stealing from their earnings, claims Nikki’s family. On Thursday evening, an argument broke out between Nikki and Vipin. He assaulted her and allegedly set her on fire with help from his mother, Daya.
“My elder daughter (Kanchan) called and told me, ‘Papa, Nikki ko jala diya (They burnt Nikki). We reached the hospital, and the doctor told us she had suffered 70 per cent burns… I have lost everything. I lost my daughter, what is left now?” the victim’s father said.
Nikki Bhati’s family said their hands were tied by a social system where the in-laws have more power over a married woman than her parents. And they gave in to the repeated demands for money from her in-laws because she insisted, and to keep the peace in her family, he said. The 28-year-old — married at the age of 18 to a student with no income – was beaten regularly when she failed to bring in money from her parents. On Thursday, she was beaten and set on fire. She died before she could get medical help.
Asked why they gave in to the Bhati family’s demands and whether they were partly responsible for her in-laws becoming progressively greedy, Nikki’s uncle Rajkumar Singh said they had “no idea that it would come to this.” “You tell me — how long can a father or brother be around? We even brought her home (In February). Not that we didn’t. But when a married daughter’s family, whom you know, have a relationship with, ask that she be sent back, how can you refuse?” he said.
The family’s demands, he indicated, were always channelled through Nikki, who wheedled, cajoled and even insisted. “This has been going on for years, but we always wanted that her marriage to survive. People give their daughter in marriage with many gifts, even if they have to take loans. The idea is that the daughter be happy. But there are expenses and there was no income (in the husband’s family). Then she would come and ask — “Papa give me 50,000 rupees, 30,000 rupees, 20,000 rupees,” he said.
Nikki’s father, Bhikari Singh Payla, always gave her the money, he said, to keep the peace at his daughter’s home. “I get it, one should not meet these demands,” he said. “But when a daughter becomes adamant – ‘Papa give me this’ — what can one do? One thinks — if a bit of money brings peace to someone’s house, give it. And you know fathers are always open-handed where their daughters are concerned.”
The key problem in the Bhati family, he claimed, was that there was no income. The two brothers – Vipin and Rohit Bhati — to whom Nikki and her sister Kanchan were married, were both unemployed. But that did not bring down their aspirations. Given a Scorpio SUV, cash and gold during the wedding, they eventually demanded a Mercedes or Rs 36 lakh in cash. It was Nikki’s inability to get it from her family that eventually led to her death on Thursday.
Asked why the family gave its daughters in marriage to unemployed men, Mr Singh said, “When the wedding took place, people were studying — high school, Inter-College, someone in BA. So no one knows what they would do later. But they make promises, peddle dreams, promises to keep our daughter happy. But when such challenges come up — like one becomes an alcoholic, what can one do? No amount of persuasion works. Our daughter was upset.”
(Manas Dasgupta)
