India, July 4 -- At first glance, the two women who have occupied India's headlines, energy and imagination for the last few weeks are mirror images of each other's lives - both sordid tales of macabre domestic violence and abuse.

Twisha Sharma, 33, was found mysteriously dead in the home of her in-laws in Madhya Pradesh. Her death - her family says she was killed and there is mounting evidence for why it was not a suicide including ante-mortem injuries - uncovered the underbelly of influence peddling. Giribala Singh, Twisha's retired-judge mother-in-law, and husband Samarth Singh, a lawyer who went absconding, used every trick in the book to tamper with the evidence and malign her character.

And Siya Goyal, 20, is in jail on allegation...