UP: BA second-year student set ablaze after a failed rape attempt, dies during treatment

Shahjahanpur (UP), Mar 23 (PTI) A college student, who was found with severe burns along a national highway in Uttar Pradesh''s Shahjahanpur district last month, succumbed to injuries at a hospital during treatment, police said on Tuesday.

The BA second-year student was studying at a college run by Mumukshu Ashram of former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand. She died at the hospital in Lucknow at around 2 am on Tuesday, Superintendent of Police S Anand said.

According to police, the girl was found along the national highway on February 22 without clothes and in a severely burnt state. She was admitted to Shahjahanpur Medical College and later shifted to the civil hospital in Lucknow.

A sub inspector, woman constable and another constable were deployed at the hospital for security purposes, the SP said.

The body will be brought here after the post-mortem examination, he said.

Four people were arrested on February 26 on the basis of the victim's statement before a magistrate in which she had alleged that three people tried to rape her in a field here on February 22 and when they did not succeed, they poured kerosene and set her on fire.

The fourth accused in the case is a female friend of the girl who had allegedly sent her to the fields.

All the four accused, however, have refused any involvement in the incident, with their family members demanding a high-level probe in the case.

The Mumukshu Ashram was at the centre of a controversy in 2019 after a female student of a law college run by it accused Chinmayanand of sexual assault. The student later withdrew her charges against Chinmayanand, who was arrested in the case in September 2019 and released on bail nearly five months later.