Murder of Anu Bansal
{{Short description|2016 murder in India}}
{{Infobox civilian attack
| image =
| caption =
| date = 14 June 2016
| title = Murder of Anu Bansal
| location = Bulandshahr, India
| time =
| timezone =
| type = Burning
| place =
| verdict =
| perp = Manoj Bansal
| victim = Anu Bansal
| convictions = Murder
{{Infobox event
| title =
| child = yes
| sentence = Life imprisonment
}}
}}
On 14 June 2016 Anu Bansal from Bulandshahr, India, received 80% burns to her body and died at Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, a few days later. In July 2022, her husband, Manoj Bansal, was found guilty of killing her for "not giving birth to a son". He received life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 20,000.
In 2016 a first information report (FIR) was filed under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which the police later changed to 306 (suicide). The case was reopened two months later, following a letter written by Bansal's daughter Latika, to the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who subsequently recruited senior officials to take on the case. In court, Bansal's daughter's recounted their eyewitness account of their mother being burned, and told the court that their father was frequently abusive to their mother for the reason that she gave birth to daughters and not sons.
The story gained wide media coverage, including in The Times of India, the BBC News, The Tribune, and The Probe, which led its readers to The Lancet's' 2021 report that shows that 50% of the world's missing female births occur in India due to sex-selective abortion.
Background
Anu Bansal was born to Omwati Devi of Bulandshahr, India.{{cite news |title=UP: Mother was forced to 'abort' five times to 'produce a male heir' |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/up-mother-was-forced-to-abort-five-times-to-produce-a-male-heir/articleshow/93201139.cms |access-date=2 March 2023 |work=The Times of India |date=29 July 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230302063715/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/up-mother-was-forced-to-abort-five-times-to-produce-a-male-heir/articleshow/93201139.cms|archive-date=2 March 2023}} In 2000 she married Manoj Bansal of Sheetal Ganj, a village within Bulandshahr district.{{cite news |last=Sharma|first=Varun|title=Bulandshahr News: तान्या और लतिका ने मां को जिंदा जलते देखा था, पिता को हुई सजा तो लिपट कर रो पड़ीं |url=https://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/state/uttar-pradesh/bulandshahr/daughters-jailed-murderer-father-in-bulandshahr-wife-was-burnt-alive-for-not-having-son/articleshow/93175750.cms |access-date=28 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230302122629/https://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/state/uttar-pradesh/bulandshahr/daughters-jailed-murderer-father-in-bulandshahr-wife-was-burnt-alive-for-not-having-son/articleshow/93175750.cms|archive-date=2 March 2023|work=Navbharat Times |language=hi}} Latika and Tanya are their daughters.
Incident and investigation
On 14 June 2016, Bansal received 80% burns to her body and died at Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi on 20 June.{{cite news |last=Pandey|first=Geeta|title=Bulandshahr: India girls who wrote letter with blood get justice |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-62344788 |access-date=26 February 2023 |work=BBC News |date=29 July 2022}}{{cite news |title=A gruesome crime, a letter with blood, a battle for justice: Indian man jailed for life for burning wife alive |url=https://www.wionews.com/india-news/india-a-gruesome-crime-a-letter-with-blood-a-battle-for-justice-man-jailed-for-life-for-burning-wife-alive-501874 |access-date=28 February 2023 |work=WION}}
A first information report (FIR) was filed under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which the police later changed to 306 (suicide). The case was reopened two months later, following a letter written by Latika to the then chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who subsequently recruited senior officials to take on the case.{{cite news |last1=Rana |first1=Uday |title=Bulandshahr teen writes letter to UP CM in blood: 'I saw my mother burned alive, give her justice' |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/bulandshahr-teen-writes-letter-to-up-cm-in-blood-i-saw-my-mother-burned-alive-give-her-justice/articleshow/53657915.cms |access-date=26 February 2023 |work=The Times of India |date=11 August 2016}}{{cite news |last=Rana|first=Uday|title=After girl writes letter in blood to CM, police reopen probe into her mother's death |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/after-girl-writes-letter-in-blood-to-cm-police-reopen-probe-into-her-mothers-death/articleshow/53673682.cms|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230226095652/https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/after-girl-writes-letter-in-blood-to-cm-police-reopen-probe-into-her-mothers-death/articleshow/53673682.cms|archive-date=26 February 2023 |access-date=26 February 2023 |work=The Times of India |date=12 August 2016}} The letter quoted Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and stated that their father and other members of his family burnt their mother, Anu Bansal, alive, and that subsequently the police deliberately changed the cause from "murder" to "suicide". The letter by the daughters received attention as it was written in Latika's own blood.{{Cite news |date=2022-07-29 |title=Bulandshahr: India girls who wrote letter with blood get justice |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-62344788 |access-date=2025-04-22 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}
Lawyer Sanjay Sharma, represented the daughters, who recounted in court that their father was frequently abusive both psychologically and physically to their mother for the reason that she gave birth to daughters and not sons. The court was informed that she had been forced to terminate pregnancies after illegal sex determination tests showed that she was pregnant with a female fetus.{{efn|Termination of pregnancies for the reason of the unborn baby being female increased in almost 75% of India’s districts between 2001 and 2011, and occurs within the background of a greater discrimination towards daughters than sons, as a result of a mixture of socioeconomic, cultural, and historical elements, despite that under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 using prenatal diagnostic techniques for sex-selective abortions is illegal.{{cite news |last1=Tahir |first1=Muhammad |title=The dark tales of India's missing girls |url=https://theprobe.in/stories/the-dark-tales-of-indias-missing-girls/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230226095519/https://theprobe.in/stories/the-dark-tales-of-indias-missing-girls/|archive-date=26 February 2023|access-date=26 February 2023 |work=The Probe |date=9 October 2022 }}{{cite journal |last1=Saikia |first1=Nandita |last2=Meh |first2=Catherine |last3=Ram |first3=Usha |last4=Bora |first4=Jayanta Kumar |last5=Mishra |first5=Bhaskar |last6=Chandra |first6=Shailaja |last7=Jha |first7=Prabhat |title=Trends in missing females at birth in India from 1981 to 2016: analyses of 2·1 million birth histories in nationally representative surveys |journal=The Lancet Global Health |date=June 2021 |volume=9 |issue=6 |pages=e813–e821 |doi=10.1016/S2214-109X(21)00094-2 |pmid=33838741 |s2cid=233212487 |url=https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(21)00094-2/fulltext |language=English |issn=2214-109X|doi-access=free }}}} The girls stated in their testimony that "At 6:30am, we were woken up by the cries of our mother. We couldn't help her because the door of our room was locked from the outside. We watched her burn". According to Latika they called the local police and ambulance services but were "ignored". They then called their maternal uncle and grandmother who transferred her to a hospital.
Verdict
In 2022 Manoj Bansal was found guilty of killing his wife Anu Bansal for "not giving birth to a son". He received life imprisonment and a fine of Rs 20,000. At the time of sentencing, he was 48 years old.{{cite news |last1=Tandon |first1=Aditi |title=Daughters' testimony lands father in jail for life |url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/daughters-testimony-lands-father-in-jail-for-life-416993 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230226105232/https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/daughters-testimony-lands-father-in-jail-for-life-416993|archive-date=26 February 2023|access-date=26 February 2023 |work=Tribuneindia News Service |date=29 July 2022 |language=en}}
Responses
The Times of India reported on the reopening of the case in 2016 and the verdict in 2022.{{cite news |last1=Sharma |first1=Sachin |title=UP: Sisters fight 6 years to get father convicted for mother's murder |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/up-sisters-fight-6-years-to-get-father-convicted-for-mothers-murder/articleshow/93198612.cms |access-date=1 March 2023 |work=The Times of India |date=29 July 2022}} The BBC News stated that Bulandshahr's court "agreed that Bansal was guilty of killing his wife" for want of a son, based on a belief "rooted in a widely-held cultural belief that a male child would carry forward the family legacy and look after the parents in their old age, while daughters would cost them dowries and leave them for their matrimonial homes." In response to the verdict The Tribune stated that it questioned the cultural preference for sons. The Probe concluded their report on the murder that "like Anu Bansal, numerous women are forced to abort their baby girls and are assaulted or killed when they raise their voices in abusive marriages. The dark tales of India's aborted daughters and missing females should be a wake-up call to our government." It used the story to direct their readers to The Lancet's report that shows that due to sex-selective abortion India accounts for 50% of the world's missing female births.
Notes
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References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bansal, Murder of Anu}}
Category:Violence against women in India
Category:2016 murders in India