The wheels of death turned because of a missing jeep. According to her brother, Santra Shaw, 24, died because their father had failed to fulfil his promise of gifting her husband the vehicle that remains a must on the dowry list among some families from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Santra was married four years ago. Her body was fished out of a pond on Friday, barely 500 metres from the BT Road apartment in which she lived with her in-laws in the Cossipore area.

Officers of the local police station acted on receiving a complaint from the victim’s brother and took Santra’s husband and mother-in-law into custody.

“There was a specific complaint against the arrested persons. The complainant alleged that they used to torture Santra, both mentally and physically, since her marriage,” said Harmanprit Singh, deputy commissioner of police (headquarters).

Santra’s in-laws have an iron-and-steel business in Maniktala and have been living in Calcutta for more than 10 years.

Early on Friday, at around 2.30 am, Vinod Kumar, Santra’s husband, came to Cossipore police station to lodge a diary that his wife was missing.

“We were told that Santra was last seen at 10 pm on Thursday. We launched a hunt immediately,” said deputy commissioner Singh.

Around 6 am, residents of the area called up the cops when they found the body of a woman floating in a pond. “We rushed there and Vinod identified the body,” said Singh. “There was, however, no external mark of injury on the body, which has been sent for post-mortem,” he added.

On hearing about the discovery of the body, Satish Shaw, Santra’s brother, lodged a complaint against Vinod and his mother. “Santra was married to Vinod four years ago and our father had to cough up a dowry of Rs 2 lakh. Eighteen months ago, she gave birth to a boy child. From the outset, her in-laws would torture Santra because we failed to give Vinod a jeep,” brother Satish told police.

Santra had plans to visit Jaunpur, in Uttar Pradesh, to attend the wedding of one of her brothers on March 2. She was scheduled to leave on Friday.

“We are not ruling out foul play, but let us wait for the post-mortem report,” said Singh.

Police are also awaiting the arrival of Santra’s parents. “Perhaps they can provide us with more facts to back up the complaint of torture, resulting in a dowry death,” said an officer of Cossipore police station.

The arrested will be produced before the chief metropolitan magistrate on Saturday.