Patna: A top ruling party official in Bihar has been accused of killing his newly married daughter-in-law for dowry barely two days after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar launched a much-hyped campaign against dowry and asked the masses to boycott marriages of people taking dowry. The anti-dowry campaign was launched in Patna on October 2 to coincide with the 148th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Kumar’s much-flaunted campaign got exposed when a local villager registered a criminal case against Janata Dal United (JD-U)’s organisational secretary, Arun Kumar Kushwaha, for torturing his daughter-in-law, Rina Kumari, to death for dowry.

According to the complainant Mahesh Bhagat, a resident of Muzaffarpur district, the accused had demanding four-wheeler since the marriage was solemnised. The wedding of Kumari was solemnised with Dipak Kumar, son of the JD-U leader, only two years back in 2015 and the couple has 11-month-old child.

“I had given just everything at the time of marriage as per my financial capabilities but right since my daughter reached in-laws’ home after marriage, they began torturing her for a car. Eventually, they killed my daughter early this week and also performed her last rites without informing us,” Bhagat said in a written complaint to the police. The case was registered on Tuesday evening.

Bhagat, his son and other relatives have been made named accused. All of them have been absconding now. The police are now conducting raids to arrest them. “All the accused persons are absconding but they will b caught very soon,” said Ram Balak Yadav a police official in charge of the investigation.

Dowry has been claiming scores of lives in Bihar and in chief minister’s own words, Bihar ranks second in number of dowry deaths after Uttar Pradesh. Bihar reported 987 incidents of dowry deaths and 4,852 incidents of torture for dowry last year.

An official report said around 25,000 women were either killed or committed suicide due to dowry harassment by their in-laws between 2012 and 2014 with Uttar Pradesh (7,048 deaths) reporting the highest number followed by Bihar (3,830 deaths). This information was provided to the Lok Sabha by federal minister Maneka Gandhi.

Apart from this, around 30,000 cases of dowry were registered during the same period under Dowry Prohibition Act.