In India, a mother and daughter where burned while they slept over a marriage payment dispute. Bride burning and dowry murders are common place when demands are not met by the wife’s family. Click below for more info

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An Indian woman has died and her 13-month-old daughter suffered horrendous burns after her husband and father-in-law set them on fire as they slept, in a dispute over a dowry payment.

The case has shocked India, a country where people have become use to reports of bride burnings and dowry murders – there are more than 8,000 women killed every year because their husbands’ and in-laws’ demands for lavish dowry payments are not met.

What is particularly alarming is the attempted murder of a daughter and grand-daughter whose first birthday they had celebrated just weeks earlier.

In Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital, 13-month-old Idika’s eyes peer fearfully out from her heavily bandaged face as she fights for her life, after suffering 55 percent burns.

Her mother Pravartika Gupta, a 25 year-old technology graduate, died in the hospital on Sunday shortly after making a statement to a magistrate.

DN