Hajipur: “About 80 per cent of total cases of alleged dowry deaths in Vaishali district are lodged by so-called victims’ relatives for blackmailing the in-laws,” says the Vaishali SP Shobha Ohatker.

Talking to TNN here recently, the SP said that there is a trend of levelling allegations of demand of money as dowry in most of the cases. Married women often do this under the pressure of their “greedy” parents, she added.

“This is all because of a lack of social protest against the lodging of false cases. The district police have now initiated action against people whose cases for dowry murder or harassment were found “false” during the investigation,” said Ohatker adding that, at least four women, declared “killed” for dowry by their in-laws, were recovered “alive” by her from different parts of district during her stint here as SP.

According to official figures, as many as 60 cases of dowry death were registered in the district in 2002 and out of them, more than 20 cases were found totally false by police. Ohatker said that six dowry death cases out of 25 lodged up to July this year were found false after probe.

About 75 cases for harassments for dowry were registered in 2002 in the district and more than one third of them were found false, the SP added.

Besides, a new trend for lodgings the cases of kidnapping through the court complaints has also been witnessed. “Whenever young girls elope with their ‘lovers’ for marriage in Vaishali district, their parents, in a bid to save their social prestige, lodge a case of kidnapping,” added Ohatker.

In 2002, 28 cases of girls’ kidnapping were lodged in the district. Of them, police investigation found 10 cases as completely false. “The rest 18 cases were declared “true”, but not because they were cases of kidnapping in true sense but because the girls in question, though had eloped with their lovers, were found minor,” she said.

As many as 12 cases of girls’ kidnapping had been lodged in the district till July this year, and six of them have been found false, the SP said. She added that rest of the cases were of elopement with consent but the girls in questioned were found minor.