Bhubaneswar: Mancheswar Police have arrested a 31 year-old man for alleged dowry-related harassment leading to his wife's death in Bhubaneswar here today. The deceased woman was identified as Rashmita Swain (27).

Her accused husband Biswanath Swain was held by police after her family levelled allegations of regular torture by his family towards her. While the exact reason behind her death is not established yet, Rashmita's kin alleged that she was subjected to domestic violence right from start and killed by her in-laws over inability to meet their demands. They also claimed that she was not allowed to access her mobile phone and news of her death was randomly broken to them under extremely suspicious circumstances.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the couple had a love marriage nine years back. They had two children. However, Rashmita's marriage had been reportedly tumultous from the start as she kept coming back to her maternal house after being abused by her in-laws. As per her family's claims, she used to have frequent conflicts with her husband and his family over dowry demands. Each time, her family tried to resolve their fights and convinced her to go back. But the harassment and abuse continued despite their interventions. 

"My father in-law used to toil as a dail wager and give away all his hard-earned money to my sister in-law as her in-laws were very demanding. But despite catering to their demands to the best of our ability, Rashmita was constantly abused. Many a times, they asked her to leave the house with her two small children. When she would turn up at our place, we would try our best to resolve the conflict and persuade her to return. But her mother in-law shamed us for not being able to comply with their demands and told us that instead of bringing her back, we should be drowning her as a cursed child. The conflicts took place multiple times and my sister in-law had even once filed a case," claimed the bereaved sister in-law. She further added that Rashmita was not even allowed to use her phone. "We could never speak to her as they denied her access to to mobile phone. And all of a sudden we got a call to reach the hospital as she had been admitted," she stated. 

Rashmita's uncle corroborated the claims and said they were informed about her death five hours later. "I had met her 10 months back in the village when she had disclosed about her marital discord. We did not catch up after that. However, we suddenly got a call from her in-laws that she had been hospitalised. When we rushed to Capital Hospital, she had already died. The security guard asked us to take help of police," he said. 

Meanwhile, police have registered a case basing on the family's allegations and started an investigation immediately. The exact cause of death will be established after postmortem, they said.