The boy has claimed that he saw something being poured on his mother, 28-year-old Nikki Bhati, before being set ablaze with a lighter.
The seven-year-old son of the Greater Noida woman, who was set on fire by her husband and in-laws in an alleged dowry killing, is haunted by the sight of his burning mother.
The boy has claimed that he saw something being poured on his mother, 28-year-old Nikki Bhati, before being set ablaze with a lighter. Nikki’s father, Bhikari Singh Payla, said that the boy cries every evening and keeps repeating, “They burnt my mother.”
“I will bring him up as well as I can. He cries every evening thinking of his mother. He keeps saying, ‘They burnt my mother.’ We try to comfort him,” Payla told NDTV.
The police are investigating the case and have so far made four arrests: Nikki’s husband, Vipin Bhati; brother-in-law, Rohit Bhati; and both parents-in-law, Daya and Satyavir Bhati.
The Nikki Bhati dowry death case
28-year-old Nikki Bhati was killed over a ₹36 lakh dowry demand, nine years after her marriage with Vipin Bhati, a resident of Greater Noida in the National Capital Region (NCR).
The victim’s elder sister, Kanchan, who was married in the same family to Vipin’s brother Rohit, claimed Nikki was burnt alive in front of her eyes as she failed to get them ₹36 lakh in dowry. She claimed that her in-laws assaulted her as well for dowry. Vipin, on the other hand, claimed that she died by suicide.
According to the victim’s family, Vipin and Rohit were both unemployed and lived off their father’s grocery shop. To become financially independent, the sisters opened a salon and boutique business, something Vipin said was “not allowed.”
An argument broke out between Nikki and Vipin on August 21, after which he assaulted her and allegedly set her on fire with the help of his mother, Daya.
“My elder daughter (Kanchan) called and told me, ‘Papa, Nikki ko jala diya (They burnt Nikki). We reached the hospital, and the doctor told us she had suffered 70 per cent burns… I have lost everything. I lost my daughter, what is left now?” Nikki Bhati’s father said.
The article originally appeared on Hindustan Times
