UP: Three arrested for setting ablaze BA second-year student after a failed rape attempt

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Shahjahanpur (UP), Feb 26: Three people were arrested on Friday on the basis of a statement by a college student, who was found severely burnt and lying naked along a national highway here, police said.

The BA second-year student of a college run by the Mumukshu Ashram of former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand said in a statement before a magistrate that three people tried to rape her in a field near Rai Kheda village on Monday. When they did not succeed, they poured kerosene and set her on fire, she alleged.

On the basis of the statement recorded at a hospital in Lucknow where the woman is undergoing treatment, four people, including a female friend who had allegedly sent her to the field, were arrested from different places in the district on Friday morning, Superintendent of Police (SP) S Anand told news persons. All four have refused any involvement, the SP said, adding that investigations were underway.

In her statement before the magistrate, the victim said that a woman friend of hers had sent her to meet the friend's cousin and a male classmate at an orchard near Rai Kheda village, saying she would be joining them soon, the SP said. She left the college through a broken boundary wall instead of going through the main gate, where her father was waiting for her.

The victim's father used to bring her to the college once a week or a fortnight and wait outside till classes ended.

The classmate she was supposed to meet and another student followed her to the orchard, the SP said, adding that they tried to rape her there but as she resisted, they doused her with kerosene and set her ablaze.

The victim has alleged that her woman friend had on numerous occasions tried to get her to talk to other male students in the class and once to the cousin on a video call, which she refused, the police said.

All four people named by the victim have been arrested, the SP said, adding that four teams are working 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.

However, the student later withdrew her charges, and Chinmayanand, who was arrested in the case in September 2019, was released on bail.