Rape accused scaled wall, entered the house and set her ablaze

Minna Zutshi

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 5

An eerie silence prevails at the house in Prem Nagar Colony of Dhandari Khurd area where a 17-year-old girl was set ablaze yesterday allegedly by a group
of youths.
The silence is broken only by the visits of mediapersons. The half-burnt footmat bears testimony to the gruesome incident. The stairs also have traces of charred clothes.
The victim’s family maintains six persons — Binder, Niaz, Babbu, Shehzad, Anwar and Amarjit — trespassed onto their house on Thursday and set the girl on fire. The youths had allegedly been stalking her for the past few months.
“On October 25, these youths had kidnapped my sister and raped her. We had to run from pillar to post to get a case registered against them. Some of them were later arrested but were now out on bail,” alleges the girl’s brother.
He is a class IX student. Though calm and composed, there is apparent sadness on his face. He’s not sure whether his sister would survive. Since morning, he has been recounting the incident for mediapersons.
Theirs is a family of five siblings, including a sister and a brother living in Kolkata. The rest of the three, including the victim, stay on the first floor of their Prem Nagar house with mother and stepfather. The ground floor is occupied by tenants.
“On October 31, a policeman was deployed for my sister’s protection. But yesterday, he failed to report for duty,” says the brother.
He takes The Tribune team to the terrace to show them how the accused scaled the wall to enter the house.
A neighbour, Mohammad Afaak Ansari, joins the conversation. “The girl was mopping the floor when the accused trespassed onto the house from the terrace door that was open. They gagged her and tied her hands to the staircase. And then they poured kerosene on her and set her ablaze.” The girl came running towards the washroom on the ground floor. She was badly burnt. The tenants poured water on her and she collapsed.
“I, along with my children, was in my room. I did not hear any commotion. It was only when the girl came down that I realised what had happened,” says Shabnam Parveen, one of the tenants.
Another tenant, Tehmeen, says she was in Parveen’s room and the door of that room was ajar, yet she did not hear any noise or footsteps that could have alerted them to the impending tragedy.