Woman Raped as Her Father Could Not Afford Motorcycle for Son-in-law
An Indian woman was all set to get married to the man her family chose for her. According to Indian traditions, she is supposed to spend the seven lives with her husband. However, it will only be an inexplicable judgement if she decides to spend the present life with the man chosen by her family, forget about the six others.
The woman, 23, was raped by the man she was supposed to get married. The incident took place in Katihar, Bihar - the eastern state of India. Moreover, the fiancé apparently had a reason to defend his criminal act as well. The woman was raped because her father failed to pay dowry for his daughter's marriage. The dowry included a motorcycle which the father could not afford to gift her future son-in-law, Emirates 247 reports.
The suspect is a 30-year-old man named Harish Kohle. He took his fiancée to his house to attend a function. The father of the victim lodged a police complaint after his daughter had been raped in the Harish's house. It has also been known that the father of Harish, Shriramji Kohle, approached the victim's father earlier to convince him to pay 50,000 Indian rupees (equivalent to about $800) as dowry. In addition, a motorcycle was also demanded.
However, the victim's father did not have the amount of money to buy a motorcycle for his future son-in-law. As a result, Harish annulled the engagement refusing to get married to the woman. He was, on the contrary, not happy just by breaking the engagement. He apparently thought that the woman must be 'punished' for her father's incapability to buy a motorcycle for him. The rape was all the 'judge' ordered, it seems.
This may not be an exceptional incident of rape in the underdeveloped Indian state, Bihar, which has lagged behind its counterparts in terms of economic and social development since the 1970s. On Saturday Dec 7, another woman of similar age was gang-raped by a couple of friends of her boyfriend. She apparently ran away from her family to get married to this guy. Eventually, she was raped at knifepoint.