A Dalit woman who was allegedly raped and set on fire by a man in Rajasthan’s Barmer district died while receiving treatment at a government hospital in Jodhpur, police said on Saturday.
The 30-year-old victim was a mother of two who sustained 50% burn injury, breathed her last late on Friday.
According to a complaint registered by the woman’s husband, the culprit, Shakoor Khan, allegedly broke into the woman’s home on Thursday and sexually assaulted his wife when she was alone. After that, he poured an acid-like substance on her and set her on fire.
Shakoor Khan was taken into custody. But the woman’s relatives have refused to take the body, claiming that the police mistreated them and threatened them as well. They wanted the dismissal of two police officers, among them a DSP, and demanded Rs 1 crore in compensation and a government job for a family member of the deceased.
The body has been kept in the MDH hospital mortuary in Jodhpur.
The victim’s family members returned to their hometown of Balotra, as per Ashwin Panwar, the additional district collector of Barmer, who had gone to Jodhpur to talk with the family members. He said attempts are being made to convince the deceased’s family members.
The Rajasthan assembly poll is on the cards, so former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje tweeted that this incident has made it clear that ‘no one is safe’ in the state.
