GHAZIABAD: A 29-year-old woman who taught at a Kendriya Vidyalaya in Delhi was found dead at her house in Vasundhara on Sunday.
In a final text she sent to her parents and brother on WhatsApp, Anvita Sharma wrote she could no longer bear taunts from her husband — "who found fault with everything I did" — and described her in-laws as "a family that only knows how to take". Two persons, including her husband, have been arrested in the case. Her mother-in-law Manju is absconding, police said.
Anvita summed up her frustrations and agony in the last line of her text, the only one directly addressed to her husband. "I have prepared food, Gaurav Kaushik, please eat it," she wrote.
Kaushik, a doctor practising in Delhi, and his father Surendra Sharma were arrested after Anvita's family filed a complaint, accusing them of dowry harassment, police said on Monday.
Kaushik, Sharma and his mother Manju were charged under BNS sections 85 (husband or relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty), 80 (2) (punishment for dowry death), 115 (2) (voluntarily causing hurt), 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and sections of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.
Indirapuram ACP Abhishek Srivastava said the incident took place around 1.30pm on Sunday when Kaushik and their son had gone out.
"On receiving her message, her family immediately tried to contact Anvita, but their calls went unanswered. They informed Kaushik who returned home but found the door locked from inside. They cut open the window grille to enter the house," he said.
Kaushik and Anvita got married on Dec 12, 2019 and have a four-year-old son. Anvita was a PGT fine arts teacher at the school, a job she had held since Oct 2019.
"He married my job, not me," she wrote.
"My husband wanted a beautiful, hardworking wife who also had a job. I did everything I could, but it was never enough. They wanted someone who would only focus on the in-laws, but my parents and brother were equally important to me. No mother-in-law could have taunted me as much as my husband did in the past five years. He found faults in everything I did," she added.
Saying her in-laws "only wanted a working maid", she wrote she was "tired of pretending to be happy". "My husband has access to my bank accounts, chequebook and everything. Please just take care of my child. I love my son the most in this world, and I want you to keep him with you," Anvita wrote, addressing her parents, adding, "I don't want him to become like his father."
Anvita's father Anil Sharma filed a police complaint, based on which the FIR was registered. Sharma alleged that he spent 26 lakh for the wedding and had given all kinds of household items, along with gold and silver jewellery, to her in-laws.
During the wedding, he alleged, Kaushik and his family demanded a four-wheeler as well, which Sharma said he met by purchasing a blue Dzire.
"Shortly after the wedding, her husband, father-in-law and mother-in-law began to physically and mentally harass her, demanding more dowry. My daughter worked as a teacher at KV Dallupura. They kept her entire salary, chequebook and ATM cards under their illegal possession. When she asked for them, they would physically assault and verbally abuse her. On March 16, they subjected my daughter to severe physical and mental harassment, leading her to write a suicide note and hang herself in distress," Sharma said.