Cop's daughter kills self over dowry demand

A 24-year-old woman whose body was found at Sinhagad on Tuesday has been identified as the missing daughter of a constable. Abhisha Sandeep Shinde, who was missing since Sunday, was driven to commit suicide allegedly by her dowry-hungry his in-laws, said the police.

Abhisha, mother of a three-year-old boy and daughter of police constable Sanjay Sahebrao Maghade (50), had left her in-laws' house at Navi Sangvi to visit her parents in Shivajinagar police colony on April 24, but never reached her destination.

After being informed that a body was found at the Sinhagad fort, like any anxious parent Maghade went to Sassoon hospital, only to identify the dead as his beloved daughter. The police established the identity of Abhisha after they recovered a photograph of Maghade and his wife from the purse of the deceased.

Maghade in his statement to the police said that his daughter was upset as she was being mentally and physically tortured by her husband and in-laws. He demanded a detailed probe into the dowry death case.

The constable said, "Abhisha got married with Sandeep, a teacher at Sadhana school in Hadapsar, on May 10, 2007 and started living her in-laws at Navi Sangvi. But Sandeep and his parents started harassing her over trivial issues, apparently for dowry. They won't allow her to talk to us or visit us. Even after she gave birth to a child, things remained the same."

"She often called her husband's house a jail and would cry to us. But we used to tell her to adjust and compromise," Maghade said. Police Sub-Inspector Devendra Singh Thakur from Haveli police station said, "The post-mortem report says that Abhisha died due to head injuries. We have recorded statements of the victim's father and her in-laws. The investigation is going on."