The Rajasthan Police on Saturday found the bodies of three sisters and their two children inside a well near Jaipur district’s Dudu area, The Indian Express reported.
The deceased women were identified as Kalu Meena (25), Mamta Meena (23) and Kamlesh Meena (20). They were married to three brothers of one family.
Mamta Meena and Kamlesh Meena were pregnant at the time of their death, according to the newspaper. The two deceased children, one aged four years and the other less than a month old, were Kalu Meena’s kids.
Prima facie, the case appears to be a triple suicide but the postmortem examination results are yet to confirm the same, Superintendent of Police Jaipur Rural Manish Agarwal told The Indian Express. “One of the women had also posted a status on WhatsApp that they were being troubled by their in-laws and it was better to die,” he added.
The youngest sister, Kamlesh Meena, had written the post, according to NDTV. “We are leaving, now stay happy, the reason for our death is our in-laws, it’s better to die once and for all than die every day,” the post reportedly said. “So, we have decided to die together. We hope, the three of us will be together in the next life. We don’t want to die but our in-laws harass us. Don’t blame our parents for our death”.
The women’s family has alleged that they were physically abused and harassed for dowry by their in-laws.
Their cousin Hemraj Meena told NDTV that they went missing on May 25. “We registered [a] first information report at the local police station, with the women’s helpline, and also with the national commission for women but received very little help,” he alleged.
The first information report was filed on May 26 under Sections 498A (husband or his relative subjecting her to cruelty), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code, The Indian Express reported.
The father of the women alleged in his complaint that he had received a phone call on the morning of May 25 from Kamlesh Meena, saying that they were being assaulted by their husbands and relatives, adding that they feared for their lives.
“I fear that they killed my three daughters and two grandchildren in a pre-planned way and made them disappear,” the complaint said, according to The Indian Express.
The police will register a case under Section 304B (dowry death) based on a supplementary report submitted by the women’s family, Agarwal said.
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