Trigger warning: The following article has references to domestic violence. Please avoid reading if you feel distressed by the subject.
Sitting in Roopwas village, in Gautam Budh Nagar district in Uttar Pradesh, Bhikari Singh Payla, 50, struggled to remember a time when his daughters — Kanchan and Nikki — were happy after they got married.
Nine years ago, the Paylas got a proposal of marriage from the Bhati family from Sirsa town, about 20km away. Kanchan was 19 then, and Nikki, 17. Bhikari and his wife Manju were thrilled. “The Bhatis had a two-storey house and their relative had a house next to theirs. The family had a decent financial background and a good name in the community,” Bhikari said.
The Paylas got the sisters married on the same mandap (stage) on the same day. Kanchan married Rohit Bhati and Nikki married his brother, Vipin. The Paylas allegedly gave the Bhatis an SUV, cash, and gold as dowry. The sisters moved to Sirsa into their in-laws’ house.
Soon after the wedding, his daughters began to allege abuse, Bhikari said. But one decision in particular caused their lives to deteriorate sharply: “It was when they started running a parlour and opened an Instagram page in 2024.”
Kanchan and Nikki’s Instagram page, called Makeover by Kanchan, has 90,000 followers. The sisters would upload pictures and reels of brides who got their makeup done at the parlour. They would also occasionally upload reels of themselves walking together, driving, or simply spending time with their family.
“Rohit and Vipin and their parents had a problem with that,” Bhikari said. “They would constantly try and coerce them to stop working.”
On August 21, 2025, Nikki, 26, was found with severe burn injuries at her in-laws’ house. She died on the way to hospital. The police have arrested Vipin, Rohit, and their parents — Satveer and Daya — in connection with the alleged dowry death.
Nikki’s brother, Rohit Gujjar, said, “We handed over two beautiful sisters to one family. Now, our laddo (loved one) is gone.” Manju sat wailing inside a room, surrounded by women.
The chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW), Vijaya Rahatkar, condemned the incident. “Daughters are not our property… There have been movements in the country to end such malpractices. Those malpractices have taken up a new form now. This is a matter of grave concern,” she said.
A fight that ended in death
On August 22, 2025 a day after Nikki was declared dead by authorities at the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, Kanchan, 28, went to the Kasna police station in Greater Noida to file a First Information Report (FIR). She claimed that Nikki and Vipin had got into a fight the previous day, which had escalated quickly.
A poster demanding justice for Nikki Bhati in Greater Noida.
| Photo Credit:
Shashi Shekhar Kashyap
“My mother-in-law, Daya, gave Vipin (Nikki’s husband) a bottle with inflammable liquid. They poured that on her and set her body on fire. My husband, Rohit Bhati, and father-in-law, Satveer Bhati, too were present there. When I tried stopping them, they beat me up as well,” she wrote.
Kanchan told The Hindu that she had rushed to help her sister. While she tried pouring water on Nikki with one hand, she recorded a video of the incident with the other. The video that she shot showed Nikki stumbling down a flight of stairs, ablaze. Another video that went viral showed Nikki’s minor son saying he saw Vipin slap his mother and set her on fire.
Kanchan said she also shot another video where Nikki can be seen asking for help inside their house. “My sister was still alive when she was in the house. They killed her while taking her to the hospital,” she alleged, while talking to TheHindu.
Taking cognisance of Kanchan’s complaint, the police arrested Vipin from Sirsa on August 23, 2025. They took him to his house to identify the inflammable object which he had allegedly poured on Nikki. “He snatched an officer’s pistol and opened fire. In retaliatory firing, he suffered a bullet injury in his leg,” said Sudhir Kumar (DCP) Greater Noida.
The police transferred Vipin to a hospital. Vipin told the media that he had no remorse since he had not done anything. “She died on her own,” he said. “Fights between a husband and wife happen everywhere. It is not a big deal.”
Hours later, the police also arrested Daya, who had allegedly handed Vipin the bottle of inflammable liquid. A day later, they arrested Satyaveer and Rohit from the Sirsa toll plaza area. The police booked the four accused under Sections 103(1) (murder), 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt), and 61(2) (attempting to commit offences punishable with life imprisonment or others) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023.
A messy affair
Kanchan said Nikki was abused the night before she died as well. “Our in-laws and husbands would constantly ask us for the money we were earning from the parlour and simultaneously shame us for earning it,” she said, adding that Vipin and Rohit were both unemployed.
A police officer in Greater Noida said he received a call in February from a woman who had gone to Nikki and Kanchan’s salon. “The woman alleged that Vipin had come to the parlour and demanded money from Nikki. A scuffle took place and the client ended up getting hurt. However, the families resolved the issue, so no complaint was registered,” the officer said. The parlour was shut down after that, he added.
Bhikari said the situation worsened after this incident. Nikki and Kanchan left their in-laws’ house and came back to their parents’ house. After a few months, a panchayat was held in Roopwas. Vipin’s family apologised and asked whether they could take Nikki back. “As her father, I was hoping that her marriage would not break down,” Bhikari said.
Nikki Bhati’s father, Bhikari Payla, at his house in Roopwas village.
| Photo Credit:
Shashi Shekhar Kashyap
However, a Station House Officer from Kasna, Uttar Pradesh, alleged that Vipin began assaulting Nikki after she alleged that he had an extramarital affair in 2022. The officer said Nikki had caught Vipin in an intimate position with a woman from Jarcha village. “She presented evidence — photographs and call records — to the village elders. That enraged Vipin. He would beat her up frequently,” he said.
The woman from Jarcha was unaware about Vipin’s marital status, the officer claimed. The woman, who was divorced, was earlier a victim of domestic violence. She had left her parents’ house and moved into a one-room rented accommodation in Jarcha so that she could live with Vipin, the officer said. “He started assaulting that woman, so she decided to leave. But Nikki had caught them by then,” he claimed.
The woman filed a complaint in October alleging that Vipin and his friend had forcefully picked her up in their car, assaulted her, verbally abused her, and snatched her phone. “She also claimed that the two of them had threatened to kill her,” the officer said.
The police booked Vipin under Sections 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt), 352 (breach of peace) and 351(2) criminal intimidation) of the BNS the same month. However, Vipin was not arrested; he was only issued a notice, said the officer.
Contrasting evidence
While women surrounded Manju Payla and consoled her in Roopwas, a group of women formed a shield around the Bhatis’ home in Sirsa. They believe that the Bhatis have been “trapped” in a “false case” of dowry and domestic abuse.
Rama Devi, 41, a neighbour, said, “Have you seen the reels those women made? They would dress up and giggle. Could any woman who was abused pose like that?”
Even as Kanchan’s videos of Nikki went viral, neighbours and members of Vipin’s extended family began circulating a set of CCTV footage showing Vipin outside the house at the time of the alleged crime against Nikki. They also alleged that Satyaveer was buying milk at the time and Daya was not at home as well.
According to the police, the CCTV footage from a shop diagonally opposite the Bhatis’ residence shows Vipin standing in front of a grocery store. Minutes later, he is joined by a boy, and is seen rushing into the house. He is then seen stepping out briefly to park his car inside a narrow alley, allegedly to help Nikki get into the car.
The police is yet to verify the CCTV footage from the shop as well as the time stamps of the videos that Kanchan recorded.
“Some of Vipin’s neighbours claim they had heard Nikki saying she had made a mistake and was crying for help while she was on fire,” an officer said. He added that Nikki had not given any dying declaration to the hospital staff.
The police said Nikki was rushed to Fortis hospital by her neighbour and in-laws. The Bhati family claimed to the hospital authorities that her burn injuries were due to a cylinder blast. The police have ruled this out. “There were no cylinders at the spot. There was only one cigarette lighter and a bottle of thinner — the inflammable liquid that was allegedly used,” said an officer.
As Fortis does not treat burn injuries over 25%, the hospital recommended that Nikki be transferred to Safdarjung Hospital since she had over 70% burn injuries. She died on the way to Safdarjung Hospital, the police said.
Given the contrasting evidence they have, the police are wondering whether they should water down the charges against the Bhatis. “With new evidence surfacing, which we are yet to completely analyse, we are considering replacing Section 103(1) (murder) with Section 108 (abetment to suicide),” said a senior police officer.
Nikki’s family has alleged that the motive for the alleged abuse was a demand for ₹36 lakh as dowry as well as their daughter’s business and presence on social media.
However, the police have not been able to invoke sections from the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, since Nikki’s death occurred nine years after she got married, said advocate Ankit Singh. “According to Section 304(B) of the Dowry Prohibition Act, if a woman dies within seven years of her marriage due to burns, bodily injury, or other unnatural circumstances, and it can be proven that she was subjected to cruelty or harassment in connection with a dowry demand, her husband or his relatives can be punished with imprisonment for a minimum of seven years, which can extend to life imprisonment,” Ankit said.
If the police changes the sections of the FIR from Section 103(1) (murder) to Section 108 (abetment to suicide), the sentence will get reduced from death or imprisonment for life to imprisonment of up to 10 years and a fine, he added.
Seeking justice
According to the National Crime Records Bureau report of 2022, 6,459 cases of dowry deaths were reported that year, with 3,499 cases pending investigation from the previous year. Of the cases reported, the highest number of dowry deaths occurred in Uttar Pradesh (2,138), followed by Bihar (1,057), and Madhya Pradesh (518). The NCW reported that they received 4,452 dowry-related complaints in 2024.
This year, there have been many reported cases. On August 26, 2025, Shilpa Panchangamath, 27, allegedly died by suicide due to dowry-related harassment by her husband, Praveen, and mother-in-law, Sharada. According to the complainant, Shilpa was pregnant with a second child when she died. The complainant said the family would constantly threaten to abandon Shilpa if her family failed to provide ₹5 lakh for Praveen’s pani puri business, after he quit his job at a tech firm in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
Sanju Bishnoi, 28, a lecturer, set herself and her 3-year-old daughter ablaze in Rajasthan’s Kakelav, allegedly due to abuse by her husband and in-laws. The daughter died on the spot, while Sanju died during treatment on August 25, 2025.
In a case reported on June 27, Rithanya, 27, from Tamil Nadu’s Tiruppur, left multiple voice notes to her father before dying by suicide. Rithanya said her in-laws had demanded ₹100 crore as dowry to start a business and were dissatisfied with the 4.5 kilos of gold they had received.
Dr. Vibhuti Patel, a former professor at the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Studies in Mumbai, blamed state bodies for failing to prevent these crimes. “In the 1980s, self-help groups and the various agendas of the women’s rights movements were taken over by the state and institutionalised. But the ineffectiveness of state bodies impacted the awareness and ability of women to seek help,” said Vibhuti, who spearheaded women’s rights movements against dowry and domestic abuse.
Vibhuti added that States such as Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab have no history of women’s rights movements. Women in these places are alienated from interest groups, which prevents their unity. “Even when women in a village know who is getting beaten up, abandoned, or cheated on, they are not united,” she said.
With the rise in hypermasculinity and the slow rate at which justice is delivered, such crimes have become the new normal, she added. “It takes a minimum of a decade to deliver rigid sentences, so culprits are rarely afraid of the consequences,” she said.
Letting go
In Roopwas, Renu (name changed) stared blankly at the media vehicles crawling through the serpentine lanes. With her ghoonghat (head covering) partly lifted, the 30-year-old single mother gazed at the house of the Paylas, less than 100 metres away from her parents’ house.
Vipin Bhati’s residence in Sirsa village is locked.
| Photo Credit:
Shashi Shekhar Kashyap
Renu believes that Nikki’s life could have been saved. “Nikki and Kanchan would come to their parents’ house every few months complaining about being abused at their in-laws’ place, but the families would call a panchayat and send them back fearing societal backlash,” she said.
The sisters would go back to their in-laws’ house with bags full of clothes, cash, and gold. Despite these gifts, the sisters would allege that they were frequently abused, she said.
Traumatised by Nikki’s death, Renu said quietly, “It could have been me.”
Nearly a decade ago, Renu had called her brother to say that she would die if he did not take her back home. “The night before, my husband had beaten me up mercilessly and my mother-in-law had watched that without protesting,” she said, showing the scars on her hands.
Renu had recorded a video on her phone to prove to her family that she was being assaulted for refusing to accept their demands of dowry, among others. “Until I showed them a clip where I had been tied with chains and hit, everyone thought that I lacked something and that my stories were fabricated,” she said.
Renu is separated from her husband and earns a living through tailoring. “A family must listen to their daughter if she says she is being abused,” she said. “They must not send her back (to the in-laws’ house) fearing what society might say.”
