NEW DELHI: Seventeen months after her wedding, 24-year-old Deepika Nagar died in a Greater Noida hospital with a ruptured spleen, a brain haematoma, internal bleeding and multiple bruises across her body, according to an autopsy report that has sharpened allegations of dowry violence against her husband and in-laws.
Police have arrested her husband and father-in-law. Her family alleges she was pushed from a terrace after months of torture linked to demands for a Toyota Fortuner and nearly Rs 50 lakh in cash.
The post-mortem findings are severe. Doctors documented facial swelling, abdominal injuries, bleeding from the ear, ruptured internal organs and extensive contusions. Investigators are examining whether she was assaulted before the fall.
The case has revived attention on the persistence of dowry-linked violence despite decades of legislation and court intervention. Deepika’s death is not isolated. Days earlier, Twisha Sharma, a 33-year-old MBA graduate and former Miss Pune, was found hanging at her matrimonial home in Bhopal’s Katara Hills barely five months after marrying advocate Samarth Singh.
Police registered cases of dowry harassment and abetment of suicide. Her husband was reported missing. His mother, retired judge Giribala Singh, denied the allegations.
In August 2025, 28-year-old Nikki Bhati from Greater Noida was allegedly burnt alive after her in-laws demanded an additional Rs 36 lakh despite earlier dowry payments that reportedly included cash, jewellery and a Scorpio SUV. Her young son witnessed the attack, according to police complaints.
In another case from January 2026, Delhi Police SWAT commando Kajal Chaudhary died after allegedly being assaulted by her husband. Her family accused him of sustained dowry harassment. The cases cut across class and profession. Employment offers little protection.
The numbers remain stark. India recorded 8,455 dowry deaths in 2014. By 2023, the figure declined to 6,156, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. The reduction appears significant. Researchers caution against reading it as a clear social shift.
Scholars at Azim Premji University have pointed to the NCRB’s “principal offence rule”, under which dowry deaths absorbed into murder investigations may disappear from dowry death statistics. A 2023 study published in
Violence Against Women found that three in five women who filed domestic violence complaints also reported dowry harassment. Registrations under the Dowry Prohibition Act rose 14 per cent in 2023, reaching 15,489 cases nationwide. UP alone reported 2,122 dowry deaths in 2023, more than one-third of the national total. Bihar recorded 1,143 cases.