In the weeks leading up to the death of Twisha Sharma, her WhatsApp conversations would tell a tale that would be disputed by her in-laws later on. Based on information gathered by investigators and court documents, the chats reflected harassment and emotional abuse she had endured because of the pressures of marriage during her five-month-long union with Samarth Singh, an attorney based out of Bhopal.
On the night of May 12, 2026, Twisha, who was 33 years old, an actress and a model hailing from Noida, whose presence on social media suggested a powerful and ambitious woman, was found hanging in her matrimonial home at Katara Hills.
Simultaneously, Deepika Nagar, a 25-year-old woman from Greater Noida, had been facing a similar yet somewhat subtle struggle. An alumnus of both BA and B.Ed., Deepika had been married to Hrithik Tanwar for about 14 months. As per Deepika's relatives, her in-laws had demanded nearly ₹1 crore at her marriage—a Mahindra Scorpio, gold, and money—and they had moved on to asking for a Toyota Fortuner along with ₹45–50 lakh more.
It was a Sunday night in mid-May 2026 when Deepika's father received a telephone call from her in-laws saying that she had accidentally fallen off the roof of their three-story house. By the time she got to the hospital, Deepika was no more. And when the autopsy results were released, they showed multiple fractures, including a ruptured spleen and brain hematoma.
Two brides. Two states. Two weddings, which seemed to have begun with festivities, flower petals, and ceremonies of a fresh start in life. The one thing that the two had in common, according to their families, is that both women died at the hands of an age-old practice of Indian weddings: the dowry system.
Whereas the issue that made the death of Twisha Sharma shocking was not only the death of this girl but also the structure of silence around this event, one can see that Twisha’s relatives were accused not only of violence towards their young bride, but also of the structure of silence around this event, her mother-in-law—Giribala Singh—a retired judge from the district court in Madhya Pradesh. Moreover, her husband—Samarth Singh—is a practising lawyer.
According to her relatives, the problem started almost immediately after her marriage in December 2025. As Twisha’s family claims, she underwent mental harassment, emotional violence, and dowry extortion. Physical assaults, some relatives also stated. Additionally, money and car demands occurred. One more important allegation that was made by the relatives of the girl was the accusation concerning forced abortion, though the mother-in-law claims that it is Twisha who didn’t want to go forward with the pregnancy.
Samarth Singh did not come forward before the police authorities following the death of his wife. He applied for anticipatory bail from the sessions court first, which was denied on the grounds that there was direct involvement of the accused since messages from WhatsApp were produced by the prosecution. The accused could not be located for ten days. Several notices were served to the accused by the Bhopal Police.
While the accused’s lawyers described this as defending legitimate rights within the law, the deceased woman’s family called it an abuse of the law.
His arrest happened on May 22 in Jabalpur after being handed seven days of police remand. In an interim order, the Bar Council of India had suspended him from practising law, saying that the charges were "serious," and considering the effect on the dignity of the profession.
Another autopsy on the dead girl's body was carried out by a team from AIIMS Delhi on directives from the Madhya Pradesh High Court. The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance in this case, and a petition has been filed under the title "In Re: Alleged Institutional Bias and Procedural Discrepancies in the Unnatural Death of a Young Woman at Matrimonial Home."
This step by the Supreme Court clearly indicates what the other courts may have thought as well: the death of Twisha Sharma would not have been subjected to the same level of inquiry if her in-laws were not in a high position.
According to Deepika Nagar’s family, the pressure began soon after their marriage ceremony in December 2024, in which they offered what any average middle-class Indian family might consider a huge amount: a Mahindra Scorpio N, around 35–40 tolas of gold jewellery, and INR 10 lakhs in cash.
Talking to journalists outside the hospital as he arrived there only to learn that his daughter was missing, her father gave a statement with a desolation born out of a couple of months of efforts to pacify her tormenters.
"I gave them a Scorpio and money many times," he stated, as per multiple news outlets. "But they murdered her."
This is not enough for them, according to the complaint. They want a Toyota Fortuner. They want another INR 50 lakhs. This is a lot of money. These are the requirements of upper-middle-class extortioners through dowry: brands as indicators of value, luxury cars as tokens of love or weakness.
She said that they had tried resolving the matter through talks. On the night that Deepika was murdered, her father, along with other members of her family, had gone to her matrimonial house with the intent of talking to them.
When the autopsy report revealed facts, the cause of death in medical terminology became a strong point for the family: rupture of the spleen, formation of clots in the brain, and an open fracture. These injuries were not caused by a fall; rather, they suggested foul play.
Both the husband, Hrithik Tanwar, and his father were taken into custody on Monday. The mother-in-law of the victim was later on taken into custody. Initially, the police considered it a suicide case because of dowry harassment.
The Dowry Prohibition Act came into force in India in 1961. Cruelty on the part of a husband or members of his family toward his wife and harassment for dowry come under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. This legislation is old. What has been lacking is their implementation.
According to the NCRB's Crime in India Report 2023, there was an increase of 14 per cent in the number of registrations under the Dowry Prohibition Act, with the figure standing at 15,489. There were 6,156 deaths in dowry murders.
It is important to note here that the state of Uttar Pradesh, where Deepika Nagar breathed her last, had 2,122 deaths in dowry cases. According to the latest statistics of the NCRB, there were 5,737 deaths in dowry cases, while there was a rise of 6.7 per cent in dowry-related suicides during the period between 2023 and 2024.
This amounts to 15–16 deaths per day, which are happening with such regularity that they are no longer considered national news but are treated as local criminal cases.
There was a particularly gruesome aspect about the economics of dowry when we talked about the marriage of Twisha Sharma and Deepika Nagar's families, and both families weren't poor. Neither did they feel threatened to give what they couldn't pay.
It is true that they willingly gave dowries because it was their duty to give dowries, and they could be shamed by society if they didn't pay for it. But the demands didn't stop there.
This is what the new version of dowry-related crime looks like. It's worse than burning the girl alive if her family can't afford to pay her dowry.
Dowry in urban areas doesn't have the same name anymore. It is named "gifts," or "help the couple set up their home." The very wedding ceremony has been taken as a means to display their dowry expenditure. Their spending isn't motivated by greed but by the fear of what others will think of them if they don't.
Deepika Nagar's family had spent close to a crore on her marriage. According to reports, before the wedding, the family of Twisha Sharma had demanded something from the girl’s family.
And, in both situations, the demands were considered as the cost of entering into the family. In both situations, their families had paid. And, in both situations, there was no end to demands.
The Toyota Fortuner has become such a part of various FIRs filed against the crime of dowry harassment in the NCR belt of Delhi–Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, that it might as well be seen as an indicator of this aspiration-driven violence.
At this level, a vehicle is not just a necessity, but it is also a status symbol.
What often goes unseen in these cases—before the post-mortem findings and the FIR and the Supreme Court cases—is the months, even years, of what has been described as coercive control within domestic violence literature: the psychological abuse of the woman through incessant berating and demands for money and continuous humiliation.
In both the cases of Twisha Sharma and Deepika Nagar, it seems the women did not seek help from the police before their deaths. Their respective families tried to resolve matters amicably.
This is not an uncommon phenomenon. On the contrary, it is actually how dowry harassment typically unfolds in Indian society.
Girls are raised with the expectation of being able to "adjust" to life with their husbands' families. The tone is compassionate, understanding, and even affectionate.
"You need to adjust a bit."
The subtext is obvious: the marital home is where the woman truly belongs, and she must make sacrifices for this. If she complains to her family, they will send her back. If she seeks help from the police, she will break up the marriage.
These WhatsApp messages found on the phone of Twisha Sharma, which were numerous enough for the sessions court to refuse anticipatory bail to her husband, contain a story that was there for everyone to see, although it was not noticed because it had been recorded digitally.
Technology records what women have been going through all along.
India launches rockets into space. It's women who head firms, earn Olympic medals, and serve in government. And still, in May 2026, two educated women from middle-class families in cities died days apart for what their families say was the same reason:
Marriage negotiations turned into threats.
Therein lies no paradox but a key fact.
Modernity has always been partial in India. More quickly than it recognises women’s professional potential, modernity acknowledges women’s right to a good marriage.
Being an accomplished woman means a girl could be a scholar, a model, or a school teacher. But she is supposed to produce a Fortuner to prove her family’s social status.
Education remains a credential in finding husbands, but not a voice inside the marriage.
Section 498A came into existence forty years ago; the Dowry Prohibition Act, sixty years ago.
But there is another thing that continues to exist: a social agreement that views marriage as a deal, views the girl as a commodity, and views her family as being forever in debt to the groom’s side.
As long as the social agreement does not come to an end—not in terms of law, but in society, within families, communities, and even marriage venues—the two pieces of legislation will continue to be what they always have been: theoretical options, unattainable in reality.
In the aftermath of Twisha Sharma's death going viral on the internet -and yes, like the other cases which have made headlines in the past, her death went viral too, as a consequence of being both beautiful and urban enough to be on social media -the Supreme Court acted. There will be a case filed before the Court that seeks answers regarding institutional prejudice and procedural lapses. Chances are that the case would be handed over to the CBI.
However, for every case that gets heard in the Supreme Court and brings into the public eye a story such as that of Twisha Sharma, there are thousands of others that do not make any impact at all. Some women hail from small cities, small towns, even villages, who would not have made it to the news and whose deaths would be nothing more than just one of those statistics mentioned in the NCRB report for the following year. And yet, every one of those digits mentioned -6,156 deaths in 2023, 5,737 in 2024, 15 to 16 per day -represents a woman's daughter who studied, had ambitions, and smiling pictures from weddings.
At what stage does a country realise that what happens inside a home is no longer merely a personal issue, or tragedy, or bad luck, or even a matter under investigation, but rather an emergency at the national level? How many people must die, how many cases must be recorded, before a response appropriate to the magnitude of the situation becomes possible?
Twisha Sharma was 33 years old. Deepika Nagar was only 25 years old. Both were well educated. Both came from families who had provided everything that was required of them. They are both dead.
India does have anti-dowry legislation in its laws. What India lacks is the courage to implement the legislation.
REFERENCES:
- Twisha Sharma case: Supreme Court suo motu hearing, May 25, 2026 - India TV News / PTI https://www.indiatvnews.com
- Twisha Sharma Death: Mystery, Allegations and Unanswered Questions - Deccan Chronicle https://www.deccanchronicle.com
- Twisha Sharma: Samarth Singh's anticipatory bail denied, MP HC plea filed - LiveLaw https://www.livelaw.in
- SC takes suo motu cognisance of Twisha Sharma case - The Federal https://thefederal.com
- Deepika Nagar autopsy: ruptured spleen, blood clots in brain - NewsX https://www.newsx.com
- Greater Noida dowry death case: Deepika Nagar's mother-in-law arrested - IBTimes India https://www.ibtimes.co.in
- Woman falls off terrace at in-laws' house in Greater Noida; family alleges dowry harassment - Edinburg Post/wire reports https://www.edinburgpost.com
- Dowry crimes rose 14% in 2023, over 15,000 cases and 6,100 deaths, shows NCRB data - The Print https://theprint.in
- Dowry Deaths Continue Across India Despite Strict Laws, NCRB Data Shows - Deccan Chronicle https://www.deccanchronicle.com
- Dowry Deaths Decline, But Thousands Still Die Each Year - Factly https://factly.in
- National Crime Records Bureau - Crime in India 2023 (official NCRB report) https://ncrb.gov.in
- Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 - India Code (Ministry of Law and Justice) https://www.indiacode.nic.in
- Section 85, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (successor to Section 498A IPC) https://www.indiacode.nic.in