Indian woman who alleged gang-rape dies after burn attack

The 23-year-old woman suffered extensive injuries and was airlifted from Uttar Pradesh to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi, where she died of cardiac arrest.

The burns casualty ward of a hospital where a 23-year-old rape victim, who was set ablaze by a gang of men, including the alleged rapist, was being treated, is pictured in New Delhi, India, on December 6, 2019.
Reuters

The burns casualty ward of a hospital where a 23-year-old rape victim, who was set ablaze by a gang of men, including the alleged rapist, was being treated, is pictured in New Delhi, India, on December 6, 2019.

An alleged rape victim in northern India set on fire on her way to a court hearing in the case she filed died in a hospital in New Delhi, officials said Saturday.

The woman was attacked by a group of men in the state of Uttar Pradesh, including two of the five men she had accused of gang-rape last year who were out of custody on bail.

Five men were arrested in connection with the burn attack.

The 23-year-old woman suffered extensive injuries and was airlifted Thursday from Uttar Pradesh to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi, where she died late Friday of cardiac arrest, according to Dr. Shalab Kumar, head of the hospital's burn unit.

The woman's death came on the same day police in the southern state of Telangana fatally shot four men being held on suspicion of raping and killing a 27-year-old veterinarian after investigators took them to the crime scene. Their deaths drew both praise and condemnation in a case that has sparked protests across the country.

The woman's burned corpse was found last week by a passer-by near the city of Hyderabad, India's tech hub, after she went missing the previous night.

Police took the four suspects to the crime scene to help them locate the victim's phone and other items, officials said.

They said that the men grabbed police firearms and began shooting, and were killed when police returned fire.

The Telangana High Court ordered authorities to preserve the bodies of the suspects and submit a video of the autopsies ahead of a court hearing set for Monday.

Separately, the National Commission on Human Rights, an autonomous body within India's Parliament, said Friday that it was sending a fact-finding mission to the crime scene amid questions from opposition lawmakers around the circumstances of the suspects' deaths.

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