Youth gets 10 years' jail for burning wife alive

A youth in his early twenties was sent to jail for 10 years by a Delhi court on Thursday for burning alive his newly-wed 18-year-old bride for dowry with the judge comparing the crime with terrorism.

A youth in his early twenties was sent to jail for 10 years by a Delhi court on Thursday for burning alive his newly-wed 18-year-old bride for dowry with the judge comparing the crime with terrorism.

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"In-laws are turning out to be outlaws, perpetrating terrorism which destroys the matrimonial home. The terrorist is dowry and it is spreading tentacles in every possible direction," said district judge Sunita Gupta, jailing Nafis Khan of Welcome Colony in northeast Delhi.

"She (bride) expects not only to be a daughter-in-law, but a daughter, in fact. But the alarming rise in the number of cases involving harassment of newly-wed girls for dowry shatters the dreams," said the court which also imposed a fine of Rs7,000 on Nafis, rejecting his plea for leniency.

"Dowry system has become a menace to the society. Such offences are required to be dealt with sternly. The mere fact that the convict is a young man is not a mitigating circumstance. As such, he does not deserve any leniency," the court said.

Nafis was convicted on July 21 on the charge of burning his wife to death in October, 2009, for not fulfiling his demand for dowry of Rs20,000 and continuously harassing her for money before her death.