Police foil 70-year-old woman’s ‘sati’ bid in Kanpur’s Banda district

The police picked up the woman from her residence at Shahbazpur Barkola village in Naraini tehsil of Banda just moments before she was about to begin walking with her husband’s body to the cremation site.

Police stopped a 70-year-old woman in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh from proceeding to the cremation ground to commit ‘sati’, an outlawed religious practice in which Hindu windows used to immolate themselves on the husband’s funeral pyre, the police said.

Calling in reinforcements to control the crowd which had gathered in anticipation of the woman burning on the pyre, the police ensured the body of the husband Mangi Ram, 75, was cremated in their (police) presence. (REUTERS)

Banda superintendent of police Ganesh Prasad Saha said, “This practice of sati is against the law. An elderly woman expressed her desire but did not attempt to become sati. Otherwise, the police would initiate action against her. She is being treated in hospital and the situation is normal in the village.”

The police picked up the woman from her residence at Shahbazpur Barkola village in Naraini tehsil of Banda just moments before she was about to begin walking with her husband’s body to the cremation site.

The police stepped in as the woman had announced she would sit on the pyre of her husband and become the second sati in Banda in 40 years. The police got her admitted in a government hospital after picking her up from her house.

She was taken to the hospital due to her age and because she will be better guarded and counselled there, the police said.

Calling in reinforcements to control the crowd which had gathered in anticipation of the woman burning on the pyre, the police ensured the body of the husband Mangi Ram, 75, was cremated in their (police) presence.

Earlier in the day, the arrival of thousands of people in the village within hours of the woman’s announcement alerted the police. Besides Banda, people from Panna and Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh reached the village in buses and tractor-trolleys. Many of them began performing religious rituals near the cremation ground, apparently according the status of a deity to the woman, Savitri, locals said.

Savitri’s eldest son Ram Narayan Yadav said his mother was depressed as his father passed away after a prolonged illness on Monday.

“She expressed the desire to become sati and announced on Monday night that she will accompany my father to the next world,” he said.

The locals said the arrival of so many people destroyed crops on hundreds of acres of land and the police had to struggle to control the crowd.

“There were a countless number of people in a five-km area. The main highway remained blocked for hours,” said Vivek Shukla from Shahbazpur Barkola.

The locals said another woman, Javitri Devi, had immolated herself on her husband Ramakant’s pyre 40 years ago. Dacoits had killed Ramakant, an engineer, and his brother in 1979. Ramakant’s cousin Krishna Dev Tripathi said the then district magistrate and the SP tried to dissuade her but she remained resolute. A temple was built in memory of Javitri and it has become a revered site for women, who regularly visit it.