Gandhinagar, March 11 (IANS) Some 178 women ended their lives due to dowry demands in a span of three years while 529 arrests have been made in cases related to dowry, the Gujarat government stated in the Assembly.

Replying to a series of questions put up to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani by the Congress legislators in the state assembly on Wednesday, the Home Department replied that a total of 178 daughters of the state had committed suicide following dowry demands.

According to the Home Department, 71 cases were reported between October 2017 to September 2018, 59 between October 2018 to September 2019 and 48 between October 2019 to September 2020.

The maximum number of cases (53) were reported from Surat district where 44 were from the Diamond City itself. A total of 152 people were arrested in these cases while 10 are still to be caught.

In the 49 cases reported from Ahmedabad, the police has caught 126 people while in 26 cases from Surendranagar, 77 have been arrested.

Morbi reported eight suicides, Vadodara (6), Patan (4), Sabarkantha (3) and Jamnagar and Kheda (2 each).

No cases were reported from Devbhumi Dwarka, Gir-Somnath, Mahisagar, Dahod, Panchmahal, Navsari, Gandhinagar, Botad and Anand.