Her parents allege that she committed suicide due to dowry harassment, while her in-laws deny it. Police have registered a case of dowry death and her husband has been arrested.

On the morning of August 20, the body of Nirupama, a junior doctor staying at the hostel, was discovered by the hospital authorities. Her death was caused by a lethal poison, injected into a vein in her left hand. She had been married for less than a year.

While both families have their own versions of the series of incidents that led to her death, both agree that she had a troubled marriage.

Nirupama and Ranjan Mattoo were married on January 18. Rajan, a Kashmiri migrant, had a small business in radios and two-in-ones. The Dalit girl and the Kashmiri Brahmin boy fell in love and this was met with an initial reluctance from the families. Matters got settled when the twofamilies met and agreed to get them married.

Both families agree that there was discord between the two soon after the marriage. Says Nirupama's father Kishan Kumar: ``Ranjan was only an ITI diploma holder and had some small business in radios and two-in-ones. Yet we decided to get them married as she wanted to be with him. But from the very beginning, there were problems at her in-laws place -- initially over the caste issue and later over the demands for more dowry. In fact, Nirupama used to complain to us regularly that she was being ill-treated by her husband and that he used to even physically abuse her. A day before her suicide, Ranjan came to our place and said that we were free to take back our daughter and that he wanted a divorce.''

Kumar says that she died under ``a lot of pressure''.

Ranjan's relatives insist that it was a case of suicide. ``She was two months pregnant and her father, who was trying to get his daughter to leave Ranjan, must have forced her to go in for an abortion. Nirupamahad already had an abortion in May and this time, she did not want to go for another one,'' says Gagan, Ranjan's cousin.

Nirupama's father has denied ever knowing anything about the pregnancy and stated that he was never aware that she had gone in for an abortion earlier. ``If my daughter was pregnant, I would have been the happiest person,'' he said. ``She died because of the dowry demands that were repeatedly being made.''

Nirupama and her husband had shifted to the hostel at GTB one-and-a-half months ago. Her father says: ``As Nirupama had night shift, she was not able to do the housework at her in-laws' place. This led to further abuse and she finally left.''