Dowry Deaths: The murders of 32-year-old Parul in Uttar Pradesh’s Amroha district and 26-year-old Nikki Bhati in Greater Noida once again highlight the long-standing evil of dowries and the violence tied to them. The 2022 National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data paints a grim picture. Records show that dowry disputes claimed the lives of more than 6,000 women that year, over 25 times the number of women killed in the country due to rape or gang rape.

The latest data reveals that Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number of dowry deaths with 2,138 incidents, followed by Bihar with 1,057 cases, Madhya Pradesh with 518 cases, and West Bengal with 472 cases. In 2022, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, and Karnataka together reported 442 dowry-related deaths.

Also Read: Top Richest People in Hyderabad 2025: Their Net Worth and Business Sectors

This report includes only documented cases. The NCRB data shows that by the end of 2022, courts were handling 60,577 dowry death cases. They carried over 54,416 of these from previous years. Of the 3,689 cases that went to trial in 2022, courts convicted in 33 percent of them. In 2018, 2019, and 2020, people filed 12,826, 13,307, and 10,366 complaints, respectively, under the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961. The NCRB report for 2022 records that 13,641 women suffered as victims in cases filed under this law.

Last week, Nikki Bhati’s husband, Vipin Bhati, and his family set her on fire because she refused to meet their dowry demands. Police arrested Vipin after he tried to grab an officer’s pistol, wounded himself in the leg, and attempted to flee from custody. Police also detained Vipin’s parents and Rohit along with him. A few days later, in Amroha district, Parul’s husband, himself a serving police officer, and his family burned her alive for not fulfilling their dowry demands.

Share

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•