India Man Kills Wife For Bearing Girl Child

[Archived_Member16]

May 21, 2011

Man kills wife for bearing girl child

TNN | May 21, 2011, 04.06am IST

KURNOOL: A pregnant woman was allegedly beaten to death by her husband in Shankarmatham mandal in Kurnool district after he found out that she was bearing a girl child.

Breaking all rules, a private scanning centre in the town had conducted the sex determination test to confirm that it was a female foetus. The accused, Prakash Chari, mercilessly beat up his wife Surekha, who was six months pregnant, and strangled her in their home in Pedda Market Street late on Tuesday night.

Neighbours rushed a severely injured Surekha to hospital where she succumbed in the early hours of Wednesday.

Sources said Chari nursed a grudge against his wife ever their first child, a daughter, was born a few years ago.

"When Surekha conceived again six months ago, Chari wanted a boy. He took her to a scanning centre which confirmed that she would be giving birth to a girl. Seething with rage, the accused hit her badly. Later, Surekha died in hospital," sources said.

Chari was taken into custody and a case registered against him.

Meanwhile, district collector Ram Shankar Naik said criminal action would be initiated against Pavan scanning centre for carrying out the sex determination test, which is banned. Sources said apart from imposing a fine of Rs 10,000, the scanning centre management people would be sent to jail for two years, if convicted.

Meanwhile, locals demanded the strongest punishment to Chari for murdering his six-month pregnant wife. They took out a rally in the town.

In a similar incident, another pregnant woman, Sujatha, was burnt to death, allegedly by her husband Ramalingeshwar after he assumed that she was carrying a female foetus. He poured kerosene on her and set her on fire.

source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...or-bearing-girl-child/articleshow/8477801.cms

 

[spnadmin]

Just thinking out loud. Would a simple education campaign taken throughout the countryside help? Has it been tried before? To inform the people that the gender of a child is determined in large part by the father, not the mother.

There are some treatments that can be use to improve chances of bearing a boy child, very simple ones. They change the vaginal ph at the time of conception. But in the end, the father is the determinant.

Would this information sink in to perhaps even a small percentage? It might change this terrifying cultural practice.

 

[Admin]

No, i don't think this will or has worked... the Indian law imposes a meager fine of Only Rs.10,000/- (USD250)... Is this the value, the Indian Law, puts on the life of an unborn girl child?

This fine amount might have been good like 35-40 years ago, but now this amount sounds like a piece of joke and rather encourages prevalence of such practices and makes a mockery of the law itself... i have seldom seen any conviction in such cases in my memory... Why not revise the fine amount to at least 5-10 lacs (Dollars half or one million) and why not setting an example by sentencing guilty clinic operators to 5-10 years of rigorous imprisonment, for revealing the gender of the unborn. Then we will see how this practice goes away in no time.

India Laws need to be revised on emergent basis... :noticemunda: