By SHUBHAJIT Chakraborty

Yemmiganur (Kurnool), April 20 – Being a fat is not just an “ugly” quotient but can be an embarrassment to others so that one can go to an extent to murder a person. A hapless incident where a wife has been torched for just being too fat, makes one believe the unbelievable.

Naveen Kumar, a 29 year old trader burnt his wife alive because she was too fat and for months he used to squeeze dowry out of wife’s father, giving an excuse of her obesity. Since three years of their marriage, Naveen took many things from his father-in-law like air conditioner, motorbike, and all furniture at his home by giving the excuse of his wife’s obesity.

The man’s family and he himself continuously abused her wife (Maheshwari, 26) because she had grown to 140kg, when she was murdered.

The family took the matter of Maheshwari as a deep shame and in fact forced her to do an abortion, fearing that she might deliver an overweight baby. She was almost house arrest and not allowed to meet neighbors and relatives, or even step outside the house.

Officers said Maheswari’s father, a municipal councilor, would step in and try to appease his son-in-law with more dowries every time Kumar quarreled with his wife over her girth.

In her dying declaration, Maheshwari accused her husband and mother-in-law, sister-in-law of torching her and put her into the kitchen at their home in Yemmiganur, 270km southwest of Hyderabad. Circle-inspector Jayachandra Reddy said the statement was given in the presence of local tehsildar Lakshmaiah.

Recently, Hyderabad girl Ayesha Siddiqui had accused Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik of marrying and then dumping her because she had grown overweight.