Jamshedpur, April 2: The court of fifth additional district judge D.C. Ray today sentenced six members of a family to seven years’ rigorous imprisonment after holding them guilty for the death of Rekha Mandal in a dowry case.

The convicted include Rekha’s husband Shashank, his father Bansidhar, his mother Munu, his sister Manju, brother Panchanan and the latter’s wife Rita. The police had registered a case against the residents of Kuali Road, Potka, on the basis of an FIR lodged by Rekha’s father Bijay Mandal in 2006.

Rekha’s two children, including her year-old son, were flung into fire along with their mother. The toddler, who was critically burnt, succumbed to his injuries the next day at Tata Main Hospital. Rekha’s four-year-old daughter escaped with minor injuries.

Bijay Mandal said that though he had given adequate dowry to Shashank during his daughter’s marriage in 2002, the accused kept torturing her for Rs 50,000 and a motorcycle. They finally set her and her children on fire on November 15, 2006. But the prosecution had claimed that this was a case of suicide and Rekha had tried to kill her two children.

Bansidhar, Munu and Manju, out on bail, were taken into custody today.