The Bengaluru police recently arrested a man after his wife allegedly died by suicide at their home in southeast Bengaluru.
The accused has been identified as Praveen, 38, who, according to the First Information Report (FIR), is a software engineer who quit his job a year after his marriage to Shilpa B Panchangamatha, 27, and began selling pani puri. The two have a 1-year-and-10-month-old child.
The Suddaguntepalya police registered the case under Section 80 (2) (dowry death) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and Sections 3 (penalty for giving or taking dowry) and 4 (penalty for demanding dowry) of the Dowry Prohibition Act. The FIR was filed on August 27, following a complaint by Shilpa B Panchangamatha’s mother, Sharada B Panchangamatha.
Sharada Panchangamatha told the police that her daughter, who worked as a software engineer with a reputed multinational company till her child was born, married Koppal-native Praveen in 2022. The families agreed to the match as both were techies.
“The wedding expenses were around Rs 35 lakh, and the groom was given a dowry of 150 grams of gold ornaments. A year after the wedding, Praveen quit his job and began selling pani puri at BTM Layout,” the FIR states.
“After the wedding, Praveen and his mother, Shantavva, tortured my daughter physically and mentally to bring more money. Shantavva even told my daughter that she was not the right match for Praveen, and if she leaves him, they would remarry him with someone more appropriate. Once I had sent my daughter back after giving her Rs 5 lakh cash,” the FIR quotes Sharada Panchangamatha as saying.
On August 26, at around 9.15 pm, Shilpa Panchangamatha’s family was informed that she had died by suicide. Her body was found covered in a bed sheet in her marital home on BTM First Stage.
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Speaking to the media, one of Shilpa Panchangamatha’s relatives questioned the circumstances of her death.
“If she had died by suicide, how did they [her husband and his family] remove her body before the police arrived, and why did they initially claim that it was a heart attack. It is a pre-planned murder. She was also one-and-a-half months pregnant at the time of the death,” the man, identified as a close relative, alleged.
Shilpa Panchangamatha’s sister Soumya also alleged that she was murdered. “Her mother-in-law used to body shame her frequently. They have murdered her. They are lying that it was death by suicide. She was also being tortured frequently,” Soumya told reporters.