Victim ran a km for help, villagers mistook her for a witch
Kanpur In flames, the victim ran almost a kilometre on the stretch from Gaura town to the railway station in Unnao, calling for help but the villagers mistook her for a witch after seeing her burnt skin.
She spent several minutes convincing a guard of a gas godown, Ravindra Prakash Singh, that she was not a witch, but was set ablaze.
“I was preparing fodder for my cattle when I heard faint screams coming from the direction of the road,” said Singh. “As she came, I began shaking with fear, thinking she was a witch,” he said.
The woman asked Singh to come forward and help her. “Mujhe bacha lo, meri madad karo” (save me, help me) she constantly asked him clutching a small purse in one hand and a small cell phone in the other.
“They have tried to kill me, please help,” she said, disclosing the name of her father to him as well.
“I could see her body in flames...she covered exactly a km to get help,” he said.
Singh doused the flames and immediately called the state’s emergency management services Dial112 for help.
The woman insisted on speaking to the operator to whom she narrated the entire incident. “I put the phone closer to her face so that she could speak to the person on the other side,” he said.
Singh said her movements were being tracked and she was accosted by five people near the Gaura crossing.
One of them tried to influence her mind from pursuing the case and even promised to marry her.
When she refused, she was dragged into the fields, cane-charged and then attacked with the knife before being set on fire. Despite this, the victim came on the road and ran for help.
Singh’s wife Sita Devi said she also came out when she heard the woman’s screams for help. “I became numb seeing her condition. I just heard her pleas for help and nothing thereafter,” she said.
