New Delhi - Police in India's eastern state of West Bengal have rescued a 40-year-old-woman who was imprisoned by her husband and in-laws in a cramped room for 15 years because she did not get enough dowry, a newspaper reported Sunday. Police found Madhabi Das inside a room at her in-laws' residence in Baruipur district near the state capital Kolkata on Saturday, and said the woman had lost her sanity because of the long detention, the Times of India reported.
Investigators said the woman had spent her youth inside a small and dark room as her in-laws and husband started demanding a huge dowry soon after her marriage.
Police have meanwhile detained three members of her family including her mother-in-law and husband and sent Das to a mental asylum for treatment.
Dowry is exchanged in a majority of Indian weddings though its practice became illegal in 1961. According to a UN report, 70 per cent of married women in India face domestic violence and many of such cases are dowry-related.
Women are abused, beaten and even killed for not getting enough dowry. The government's National Crime Records Bureau reports that more than 18 women are killed for dowry in India every day.
