December 16, 2013.

Dehli Policewoman Finds Tradition Mightier Than The Badge

"Yes, dear, you would have. I would, if I'd been the same person then as I am now. Or perhaps I would----I'm not certain."

NEW DELHI----Policewoman Preeti Dhaka had been married nearly a month when she returned to a city pulsing with crowds of angry women last December protesting the brutal gang rape of a student on a bus.

"Are you sorry you didn't?"

Ms. Dhaka's regular beat was to protect women from crimes, and her heart was with the demonstrators her bosses sent her to restrain. "So many people are out here for her," Ms. Dhaka told her sister, referring to the rape victim. "She should get justice."

"Yes. On the whole I'm sorry I didn't."

But Ms. Dhaka's training as one of the capital's nearly 1,000 female investigators couldn't insulate her from Indian traditions that often conspire against laws meant to enforce women's rights. After a day of protest duty on New Year's Eve, she wrote a despairing note: Her new husband, unhappy that her dowry hadn't included a car, "tried to motivate me to die."