Relief endangers widows’ lives

The Muzaffarnagar riots are throwing up strange equations in relationships. A young widow from Khedi Tagan village has sent a letter to the district magistrate of Muzaffarnagar alleging threat to life from her own in-laws. The woman, whose name is being withheld on request, has written to the district magistrate that her in-laws have taken away the compensation she received after her husband was murdered in the riots on September in Mathedi village. “They now want to eliminate me so that they can claim compensation for my death too. I request you to grant me financial aid because presently I have taken refuge in the home of a Hindu woman and have no where to go,” she wrote. The young woman was married to a youth from Khedi Tagar village about three years ago. The woman’s parents are dead and she had a mentally retarded brother to look after. Her husband, who was in the business of supplying milk, was killed while he was going to work. According to her, after her husband’s burial on September 10, the entire family left the village and sought shelter in a relief camp while she chose to return to her paternal village. “Since house here was in a dilapidated condition, a Hindu neighbour offered me shelter and I am living with her,” she wrote. According to the widow, the family has received about '14 lakhs as compensation and her in-laws now want her dead so that they can claim compensation for her too. The woman said that she had been informed by common friends that they were plotting to eliminate her. The woman, incidentally, is not the only one to face hostile relatives after the Muzaffarnagar riots. “There are several young woman, widowed in the riots, who are being forced by the in-laws to marry the younger sons so that the money received as compensation remains in the family. As officials, we cannot interfere in their personal family matters but we have received several complaints, most of them verbal,” said a senior district official. Compensation, incidentally, has been a major issue even in families of martyrs.