Murder of Anu Bansal
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 was filed under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, which the police later changed to 306. 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. In 2000 she married Manoj Bansal of Sheetal Ganj, a village within Bulandshahr district. 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.A first information report was filed under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, which the police later changed to 306. 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. 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.
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. 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.