Shahjahanpur college student accused three men of setting her on fire: Police

The woman, whose condition is critical but stable, is currently admitted at a Lucknow hospital.

A 23-year-old college student who was found with 60 per cent burn injuries on a roadside in Tilhar area of Shahjahanpur district three days ago has accused three men of setting her on fire after trying to sexually assault her in her “dying declaration” to the magistrate.

The woman, whose condition is critical but stable, is currently admitted at a Lucknow hospital.

In cases where a person has suffered over 50 per cent burn injuries, recording of dying declaration in advance is mandatory.

“On Monday when the incident took place, the woman didn’t reveal much to us, apart from saying that the last thing she remembered was being on the third floor of her college. Now, we have received her dying declaration. She has alleged that her college friend asked her to go to a particular place and she left the college from the backside. She said that on the way, three people, including two of her friend’s relatives approached her. They allegedly tried to sexually assault her and later set her on fire with an intention to kill,” Superintendent of Police (Shahjahanpur) S Anand said on Thursday.

“Believing that the dying declaration is concrete evidence, we are moving further as we do not want to prolong the investigation anymore. The dying deceleration cannot be denied, unless we have got other very concrete evidences which can overrule it, but that is not the case here as of now. We would be adding IPC sections for rape in the FIR has been registered on the complaint of woman’s father under section 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC. We have started looking for the three accused, two of which have been identified and named. We will also strictly question the female friend of the victim as her name has come in dying declaration,” he added.

Senior police officials said they had earlier tried to talk to the woman but she didn’t share the sequence of events that led to the incident. Police had earlier said that in the CCTV footages, they found the woman, an undergraduate student at a college run by an ashram of former Union minister Chinmayanand, leaving the college from the backside.

A police officer said the CCTV footages of her movement showed she left on her own on foot and took an alternate route.

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