07-26-2006, 03:59 AM
Source..
http://www.sunyaprajna.com/Worldview/SRKco...l#ArticleOnSati
quoting..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25...2192027,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Hundreds of villagers watched as Vidyawati Singh threw herself into the flames of her husband's funeral pyre. She was dead within minutes, leaving behind three children.
The 35-year-old widow's death last week has stunned India, and police investigating whether she was driven to commit sati have arrested more than a dozen villagers, including three of her brothers-in-law.
<b>The case has also added to growing pressure on the Indian Government to pass new legislation making it possible to prosecute whole communities for failing to prevent the practice of sati, in which a widow kills herself on her husband's funeral pyre.</b>
The present law prescribes a life sentence or death for anyone convicted of abetting sati, but convictions are hard to secure because villagers refuse to be witnesses. <b>The proposed new legislation, due to go before parliament this summer, would automatically assume sati was committed under duress, and that the woman's family could have stopped her.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
http://www.sunyaprajna.com/Worldview/SRKco...l#ArticleOnSati
quoting..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25...2192027,00.html
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Hundreds of villagers watched as Vidyawati Singh threw herself into the flames of her husband's funeral pyre. She was dead within minutes, leaving behind three children.
The 35-year-old widow's death last week has stunned India, and police investigating whether she was driven to commit sati have arrested more than a dozen villagers, including three of her brothers-in-law.
<b>The case has also added to growing pressure on the Indian Government to pass new legislation making it possible to prosecute whole communities for failing to prevent the practice of sati, in which a widow kills herself on her husband's funeral pyre.</b>
The present law prescribes a life sentence or death for anyone convicted of abetting sati, but convictions are hard to secure because villagers refuse to be witnesses. <b>The proposed new legislation, due to go before parliament this summer, would automatically assume sati was committed under duress, and that the woman's family could have stopped her.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->