Odisha: Woman found dead at in-law’s house in State Capital, family alleges murder

Bhubaneswar: A young woman was found dead yesterday under mysterious circumstances at her in-law’s house in Arvind Nagar locality under Airfield police limits of Bhubaneswar. However, the family of the deceased alleged that she was murdered by the in-laws over a dowry demand.

The incident came to the fore today after local police registered an unnatural death (U/d) case in this connection and initiated a detailed probe, which is underway.

The deceased was identified as 26-year-old Priyanka Mishra, who belonged to Kendrapara district. She had married Suraj Das from Arvind Nagar around two and half years ago.

According to police sources, Priyanka had been complaining of torture by her husband.

After a few months of her marriage, Priyanka was demanded a dowry of Rs 5 lakh by the in-laws. Being pressurised by the demand, she had informed her father Bidyadhar Mishra about it. Her in-laws started torturing the young woman as she had failed to give the demanded amount.

Later, the matter was mediated and compromised by local police, but Priyanka was tortured again. The in-laws had also previously forced Priyanka to terminate her pregnancy, her family alleged.

Acting on an FIR lodged by Priyanka’s family, Airfield police detained Suraj for interrogation.

“On Monday evening, I got a phone call from Priyanka’s mother-in-law saying that ‘my niece has died by suicide’. When we (the deceased’s family) reached their house in Bhubaneswar late yesterday night, we saw that she (the victim) was lying on the floor and there was an apparent rope mark around her neck. We immediately informed police about it,” Priyanka’s maternal uncle Ranjan Tripathy said.

“My niece was being both mentally and physically tortured by Suraj and his family,” Tripathy added.

Police have sent the body to Capital Hospital for post-mortem and a report is awaited.