Trigger warning: the following article contains references to suicide. Please avoid reading if you feel distressed by the subject.
From the sit-out of his home, Jassim Naz gazes out at the small, empty courtyard beyond. “Do you think the case will drag on for a long time?” he asks. To say that the past two weeks have been harrowing for the 39-year-old and his family would be an understatement. He is certain about one thing, though. “No girl should have to go through what my sister suffered,” he says, indignation and bitterness evident in his troubled voice.
In the normal course of things, the family would have celebrated his youngest sister’s 27th birthday on December 11. But that was not to be. Shahana A.J., a postgraduate doctor at Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, and the youngest of three siblings, took her own life on December 4. The young doctor who was attached to the surgery department was emotionally battered by alleged demands made by her fiance for a hefty dowry to tie the knot.
