The 24-year-old woman in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghazipur district who had set herself on fire along with a male friend outside the Supreme Court last week following she had lodged a rape case against BSP MP Atul Rai, and accused police of supporting him, succumbed to burn injuries on Tuesday. The male friend, a 27-year-old Delhi University graduate, had died during treatment on Saturday.
The woman had come to Delhi with her friend on 16 August. Before setting themselves on fire the same day, they recorded a Facebook Live video, wherein the woman said she had lodged a rape case against BSP MP Atul Rai, and alleged that senior IPS officers and a judge from Uttar Pradesh were part of a nexus, reported Indian Express.
“They have issued a non-bailable warrant against me. The judge has summoned me. They are all a part of nexus… Me and my witness were trapped,” she said in the video.
“Now, you (Uttar Pradesh Police) can file false cases and non-bailable warrants against us…. This is Uttar Pradesh’s judicial system,” the man added.
The woman had sustained 85 per cent burns in the self-immolation bid on August 16. The man, 27, had suffered 65 per cent burns and succumbed to his injuries on Saturday. Both were admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, according to PTI news agency.
The woman earlier said she was raped by Bahujan Samaj Party MP Atul Rai in 2018. The MP has been in judicial custody in the case for the last two years.
In 2018, she said she came to know BSP MP Rai while contesting student union elections and had sought financial help from him. The woman said Rai called her to his apartment in Varanasi on March 7, 2018, and sexually assaulted her. She alleged that Rai had filmed the assault, and threatened to circulate the video clip on social media.
According to a senior police officer, the man and the woman took the extreme step as a court had issued a non-bailable warrant against them in a case of forgery for allegedly submitting wrong proof of age in the rape case.
In her Facebook video, the woman had mentioned the warrant and that she had been summoned by the judge.
Last November, MP Rai’s brother, Pawan Kumar, lodged a complaint in Varanasi against the woman for allegedly forging documents. He alleged that in 2015, when the woman produced her high school mark sheet before the police while lodging an FIR against a student leader on charges of molestation, her date of birth was shown as March 10, 1997. According to the complaint, when the woman filed the case against Rai in 2019, her mark sheet showed her date of birth as June 10, 1997, reported Indian Express.
A case was lodged against the woman under IPC Section 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) in Varanasi.
In March, the woman had filed a plea in the Supreme Court, seeking transfer of her rape case from Allahabad to Delhi for a fair trial and claimed that she faced a threat to her life.
In March, the woman had filed a plea in the Supreme Court, seeking transfer of her rape case from Allahabad to Delhi for a fair trial and claimed that she faced a threat to her life.
