In a dark saga of revenge, a newly-wed woman in Bihar has killed four members of her in-laws’ family by lacing their food with poison after she could no longer tolerate the alleged harassment at their hands. Two other members who ate the poisoned food are struggling for life.
After killing her husband, mother-in-law and two adolescent family members, Bibha Kumari, about 20, confessed her crime to the police and got arrested, saying she was more wronged against than she had wronged.
Bibha Kumari’s marriage had taken place just two months back. The incident occurred at Mohanpur village in Samastipur district late on Monday night, police said.
“My husband was frequently beating me up and I saw no other way to deal with it,” she told policemen soon after her arrest. Kumari confessed to having mixed poison to the dinner she cooked and served to the entire in-laws’ family of low-income farmers in a rural part of Samastipur district.
She herself did not eat any food by feigning a stomach ache.
Prem Lal, her father-in-law who is recuperating at a hospital along with another son, denied there was any quarrel between his dead son, Suresh Ram, and daughter-in-law. Ram, 25, his mother Ramdulari Devi, 40, sister Rani Kumari, 8, and brother Raja Ram, 6, died on the spot at their home minutes after eating the poisoned food.
“This prima facie appears to be an extreme incident of revenge, but we are investigating all possible angles,” said Samastipur SP Ajitabh Kumar.
Despite the Nitish Kumar government’s efforts for women’s empowerment, Bihar still has a bad record of domestic violence against women primarily because of what sociologists call its feudal past, which refuses to embrace modern social trends.
A set of government data last month said crime against women was on the rise in the past few years in Bihar.