At a time when the anger of whole nation is running high, Unnao rape survivor succumbed to the burn injuries inflicted upon her by the accused, the rape victim from Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district was airlifted to Delhi and had been admitted to the Safdarjung Hospital after she was set on fire allegedly by five accused. She died last night succumbing to the grave burn injuries after struggling for almost 40 hours.
She silenced her voice forever, saying “Bhaiya mujhe bacha lo, mujhe marna nahi hai. Jinhonne mere sath ye kiya hai, unhe mai maut ki saza paatey dekhna chahti hu,” mourned her brother. (please rescue me, I don’t want to die. Those who have done this to me, I want to see them hang to death).
According to the police, victim had filed a case in March this year alleging that she was raped between January 19 and December 12, 2018, by one of the accused on the pretext of marrying her. In her statement to the magistrate, she alleged that the accused Shivam and Shubham Trivedi had abducted and raped her in December 2018. Ten days ago, the prime accused, Shubham, was released on bail while the probe was still on. Depicting the failure of the police, immediately after securing bail, Shubham allegedly started following and threatening her. The victim and her family visited the Bihar police station close to the Sindupur village in Unnao several times but the police turned a deaf ear to the complaints.
Notably, one of these five accused is the son of the village pradhan against whom the woman had lodged a rape complaint. Her family had alleged that their relatives had been getting death threats for pursuing the case. This week on her way to court in Rae Bareli, the five men Harishankar Trivedi, Ram Kishore Trivedi, Umesh Bajpai, Shivam and Shubham Trivedi thrashed her, doused her with kerosene oil and set her on fire. The survivor ran for almost one km for help while her body was in flame, called 112 from someone’s mobile phone and informed police about the incident. The accused had forcibly taken her to a field outside the village and poured petrol on her as the police reached the spot, they found her in a severely burnt condition while the accused had fled by then. The severity of the crime could be understood by the fact that during her treatment in the hospital even the breathing tube of the ventilator was burnt by the toxic gases which entered her lungs.
A witness to the monstrous crime, Ravindra, who was sitting by the roadside then, told that he was so frightened that he actually went to pick up his stick. “It was only when she came nearer that I found she was severely burnt.”
As this horrific crime happened, the victim was promptly admitted to a local hospital in Lucknow with 90 per cent burns but was later shifted to Delhi. The Delhi Traffic Police provided a green corridor from the Delhi airport till Safdarjung Hospital. However on Friday night, Safdarjung Hospital stated that the next 24-48 hours are really critical for her as she was on a ventilator, unfortunately she couldn’t make it
The unfortunate incident unnerved the state government with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath instructing the officials to submit a report over the horrible incident immediately.