Etawah, Jul 19 (HT): A 20-year-old private tutor who was allegedly gang-raped by her fiancé and his associates and set on fire in Etawah last week died in hospital around 12.15am on Thursday.
"She succumbed to injuries after midnight," her brother said on Friday.
The young woman was battling for life with 90% burn injuries at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences at Saifai in Etawah, the home district of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav.
According to the first information report lodged by the woman's brother, her fiancé Farhan and four of his associates raped her and set her on fire on July 10. The complaint also names two women as accused.
The police had arrested Farhan from a bus station in Etawah on July 13. The other accused are on the run.
According to reports, the woman had suffered the horrific sexual assault and murderous attack when she had gone to Farhan's house to persuade his family to solemnise their wedding without dowry.
The police, however, had initially said she might have set herself on fire.
On July 12, Etawah senior superintendent of police Nilabja Choudhury said there were reports the woman had set herself ablaze because a dowry demand of Rs. 5 lakh from Farhan's family had cast a shadow over their marriage.
The woman was a graduate. Farhan is a mechanic.
The woman's brother said the accused had threatened his family to withdraw the case. "We have sought police protection."
He said the family had wanted her to be shifted either to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi or the SGPGI, Lucknow, but that could not happen because she was on ventilator support and critical.
The woman’s death comes even as Uttar Pradesh reels under a string of such violent attacks on women and children reported from across the state.