IMPHAL, March 22: The in-laws of Monika, a housewife allegedly killed on March 18 by her husband and family members denied the allegations against them in a press conference at Thoubal Bamon Leirak on Saturday.
Briefing the media, Moirangthem Manihar, father of M Bikramjit, said: “Monika was my youngest daughter-in-law who married my son (Bikramjit) December last year and we have treated her as our own daughter and there was no misunderstanding in the family despite living in a big joint family.”
Claiming that he was tilling a paddy field on the day when Monika was found hanging inside the bathroom, he said that after hearing the news he rushed to the hospital but found his daughter-in-law already declared death.
He continued that they surrendered to the police after the incident but the family members of his daughter-in-law accused them of killing her and dismantled their household property.
Terming the incident as unfortunate and claiming to have no idea why his daughter-in-law took such an extreme step, he appealed to the police to solve the case soon and find out the truth.
“If the police find the involvement of any of our family members including my son in this case, we will gladly accept the punishment meted to us by the law of the land,” he said.
Hema, Monika’s mother-in-law said that the day before her daughter-in-law committed suicide, his son Bikram and Monika returned home around 8 pm after staying with her parents for a day.
She said that after having dinner and finishing household chores, Monika asked her whether she had informed her parents about her pregnancy and also asked her whether she can take a pill to drop the child, continuing that she asked her not to take the pill or to abort her first child.
“On the day Monika committed suicide, she prepared lunch for the whole family and delivered tiffin to her father-in- law on the next house. Around 10 am, she made frequent phone calls to her husband and during the course of time he returned home and had lunch inside the kitchen.”
“The couple spent some time inside their room and nothing untoward happened between the two. After some time, a friend of Bikram’s called him and after that Bikram went out along with his friend,” she said.
She said that ten minutes later Monika went inside the bathroom and locked the door and didn’t come out for a long time after which she heard someone moaning inside the bathroom and when she peeked through the hole of the door she found Monika hanging with a Chuni inside the bathroom. She claimed that she ran out calling for help from the locality after that.
Monika was rushed to the Thoubal District Hospital for treatment and after reaching there she was declared death and a police team took the death body for post mortem. During that time Monika’s parent also arrived there, she added.
She continued saying that when she along with others were on their way towards their home angry people from Monika’s locality dismantled their house hold property and one of locals asked them to leave the place.
Meanwhile, L Moyo, a member of the Meira Paibi of the locality said that a large number of people from Monika’s locality came to their locality. During the course of time, they asked them to jointly find out the truth behind the death of Monika and gave a befitting punishment to the accused but they didn’t listen to their words and dismantled the house hold property.
She further condemned the act of the police officer (IO) of the case and the concerned DC Thoubal for being one-sided and handing over the death body to Monika’s parent to perform the last rites.
The locals of Thoubal Bamon Leirak organised a rally towards the DC office in Thoubal on March 19 demanding to hand over the dead body to perform the last rite of Monika as she was a part of their locality but they were not allowed to meet the DC by a large number of police personnel who force them to return back till Thoubal Mela ground.