Woman commits Sati in Bihar

Patna: A woman in Bihar jumped on to her husband’s lighted funeral pyre and immolated herself apparently unable to bear separation in a reminder of the century-old sati system which was once widely prevalent in India.

The incident took place at Parminia village under Kahra block in eastern Bihar’s Saharsa district on Saturday night.

The report said Ramcharitra Mandal, 75, who was suffering from cancer died on Saturday morning after which his body was consigned to flames late in the evening by his family members and local villagers near his house. Reports said the grieving family members returned home from the cremation site after the body was consigned to flames. In the meantime, the man’s 70-year-old widow Gahwa Devi fled her home and jumped on to her husband’s funeral pyre, the local media quoted the witnesses as having said.

Witnesses said after finding the woman missing from home, local villagers and family members began anxiously searching for her and ultimately found her lying unconscious on her husband’s funeral pyre, having been grievously burnt. Eventually, the family members put more wood on the pyre and cremated her.

“The matter was found to be true during the investigation. This is a case of suicide although we have not recovered her body. We are registering a case is this connection,” the local deputy inspector general of police Arvind Kumar was quoted as saying in a local vernacular daily on Sunday.

The local villagers say the victim was mentally sick and had been living in depression after her husband was detected suffering from cancer.

The practice of Sati is considered to have originated within the warrior aristocracy on the Indian subcontinent, gradually gaining in popularity from the 10th century and spreading to other groups from the 12th through 18th century. The practice was eventually outlawed by the British government in 1829 within their own territories in India, followed up by laws in the same directions by authorities in the princely states of India in the ensuing decades, with a general ban for the whole of India issued by Queen Victoria in 1861.