Indian family burns bride due to very dark skin

Violence against women persists in two neighbouring Asian nations which share a common history of high incidences of rapes on women, victimising in March 2015 an old Indian nun. This time the victims are young brides and like many rapes, the perpetrators are often relatives of the women.

The Telegraph reports on Thursday that Somera Bibi, an Indian bride, was immolated by the family of her husband because her skin was too dark. The family allegedly wants not only the husband to marry a fairer skin woman for a new bride but more money from Somera’s family.

The dowry that Somera’s family paid to her in-laws was 100,000 rupees (AUD$1,950) and a farmland as compensation for her dark skin tone. But the in-laws wanted more and were demanding an additional 250,000 rupees (AUD$4,874) but Somera’s family has become broke with the first dowry.

The couple fought on June 3 and the husband, mother-in-law and three brothers-in-law locked Somera in a room, poured kerosene on the 22-year-old woman, lit a fire and left her to die. When neighbours in Parun Village heard her screams and saw smoke, they rushed to rescue the burning woman.

On her deathbed in the hospital, Somera reportedly told West Bengal police the reason behind the attack is because her family protested the extortion by her in-laws. What Somera experienced is relatively common in India where there almost 25,000 dowry deaths were recorded from 2012 through 2014, or one incident every hour during the three-year period.

The husband and his family, together with the couple’s two-year-old son had fled West Bengal which has the highest rate of cruelty by a husband or his family to wives, with more than 61,000 cases reported, according to the National Crime Records of India.

The incident happened just one day after Parveen Rafiq, a Pakistani woman, tied up her daughter Zeenat to bed and with the help of son Ahmar Rafi, poured oil on the 18-year-old and set her on fire. Parveen was opposed to Zeenat’s marriage to Hassan Khan whom the Rafiq family did not want for Zeenat, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

In Pakistan, 1,000 women are killed yearly for allegedly breaching the country’s conservative norms on love and marriage. The deaths are called “honour killings.”

VIDEO: Bride Burning in India