After the tragic incident of a Muslim woman being harassed and set on fire by three men – Satish Kumar Rai, Vijay Rai and Chandan Kumar in Rasoolpur Habib village of Vaishali district in Bihar, the victim’s sister said that since the incident, Satish’s family has been threatening them in no uncertain terms. “The accused’s uncle Pramod Rai has threatened to kidnap me whenever I go out for school or tuition classes,” The Wire reported her as saying.
The accused was arrested after two weeks but the police’s reported delay in acting has come under question.
The victim had filed a written application on October 30. However, personnel of the Desri police station filed an FIR two days later on November 2.
The Wire reported that the victim’s family said that the police had remained inactive despite the application having been made on October 30. Several times they pleaded with police to arrest the accused, the family said. Police, meanwhile, said that they would take action if the victim’s family caught the accused and brought them to the police station.
The family also said that relatives of the accused had been – in the meantime – visiting the police station frequently and pressuring police to ‘settle’ the case.
In her statement from the hospital, the victim named three men – Satish Kumar Rai, Vijay Rai and Chandan Kumar.
She said that she had gone out to throw away the trash at around 5 pm on October 30, when the three misbehaved with her. “When I protested and said that I would tell my mother about their antics, Satish took out a bottle of kerosene from his pocket and poured it on my body. After this, they set fire on me with a match. I started shouting. People around started gathering there, and then all three fled,” she said in her statement.
She was immediately taken to a local private hospital for treatment and was later admitted to Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH), where she died on the night of November 1.
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Rushda Fathima Khan is the Staff Reporter for The Cognate.
