SAM DOLNICK NEW DELHI

More than 100,000 young women were killed in fires in India in a single year, and many of those deaths were tied to domestic abuse, according to a study published yesterday.

Young Indian women are more than three times as likely to be killed by fire as their male compatriots, according to an article published on the website of The Lancet, the medical journal. The victims were generally aged 15 to 34.

Domestic abuse is a serious problem in India. Women are sometimes killed in disputes over dowries. Often, the victims are doused with petrol and set ablaze; their deaths are claimed as kitchen accidents.

In the first study of its kind and using the most recent data available, The Lancet analysed death registrations, official questionnaires in rural areas and census figures to arrive at an estimate of 163,000 fire-related deaths in 2001, or 2% of all deaths. That is six times higher than the number of such deaths reported by police. More than 106,000 of those, or 65%, were women.

Women's rights activists have long accused the government of not doing enough to fight the problem. Indira Jaising, director of the Women's Rights Initiative of the Lawyers Collective in New Delhi, said authorities paid the issue only lip service. "They say that it's a crime and it's shameful, but it's not enough to say that," she said. "They have not been able to do anything to stop it from happening."

She said authorities must intervene earlier in dowry disputes and domestic abuse cases. "Once the death takes place they are willing to investigate but by then it's too late," she said. "When women go to them with complaints when they're alive, those complaints should be taken seriously."

Officials at the Ministry of Women and Child Development did not respond to requests for comment.-AP