Nepalese police were searching for a husband and his parents after they allegedly set his pregnant wife on fire in a demand for a dowry, an officer said on Tuesday.
Police accuse Farid Sheikh and his parents of pouring kerosene over the 25-year-old woman, who was seven months pregnant, in an attempt to extort a motorbike and water buffalo from her family.
“When the incident happened about a month ago, they took her to India for treatment, saying it was an accident,” police official Prem Basnyat said.
After her health worsened and she suffered a miscarriage, her father found out and urged police to file a criminal case against the husband’s family in Banke district, western Nepal.
“We recorded her statement yesterday, but her husband and in-laws have vanished. We are searching for them,” Basnyat said.
A local human rights group said it took the woman to a Kathmandu hospital on Monday where she remains in a critical condition, with her entire lower body wrapped in bandages.
The woman has recounted how her husband assaulted her regularly, saying that she did not bring a dowry.
She added that he burnt her private parts with cigarettes, the Informal Sector Service Center rights group said in a statement.
Nepalese activists have long called for tougher punishments against the perpetrators of dowry-related violence.
They say the tradition — where gifts and payments are given to a husband and his family so that a marriage can take place — is still widely practiced, despite an official ban.
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