Domkol, May 17: A young housewife’s death in a Murshidabad village has triggered allegations that she was being pressured to bring Rs 1 lakh from her parents to pay off her husband’s first wife, who had been forced to agree to a divorce by a kangaroo court.

Sonia Bibi, 18, was found hanging on Thursday night, exactly a month after she got married to garments trader Rahul Amin, 25.

Her father, who came to know about her relationship with the married man only after they got married, has lodged a police complaint accusing Rahul, his brother and parents of abetting suicide.

Police said they had fled their home in Domkol, about 250km from Calcutta.

In his village, Rahul is a man of means, earning Rs 5,000 a month from his store, which he set up last year with an investment of Rs 1 lakh.

He had married Sabina (name changed) a year and a half ago and taken Rs 60,000 as dowry from her widowed mother. But he befriended Sonia within months and took her home last month. After that he began pressuring Sabina to leave with their five-month-old daughter. When she refused, he approached local Congress leaders, including gram panchayat chief Moyna Bibi.

At the kangaroo court held outside Moyna’s house on April 22, “my daughter was ordered to agree to a talaaq”, said Sabina’s mother Shefali.

Moyna defended the kangaroo court, saying they were common in villages.

Sonia’s ordeal began after Sabina went away with her daughter. “Rahul and his family began to pressure my daughter for the Rs 1 lakh he was told to give Sabina,” said Sonia’s father Javed Mondal.