In Greater Noida, 15-year-old girl burnt alive for resisting rape bid

A 15-year-old girl died in Greater Noida on Saturday after being set afire for resisting a rape bid by her uncle, who had been blackmailing and sexually assaulting her for the past eight months, the police said.

The man and his wife were arrested along with two male neighbours in the NCR town’s Jewar area. Police said they had made an MMS of the victim using her morphed image and the three men had used it to rape her several times. Her aunt is also accused of extorting Rs 5,000 from her.

The accused, however, claimed the girl had committed suicide, said Jewar SHO Surender Yadav.

“On Saturday morning, the victim’s uncle and aunt called her to their residence where the uncle tried to rape her again. When she refused, he threatened to make the MMS public and defame her parents,” said deputy superintendent of police Arvind Kumar.

“The victim’s parents claim the accused poured kerosene on her and set her ablaze when she turned down his advances.”

Hearing her screams, neighbours rushed to the spot to find her in flames. They doused the fire and took her to Kailash Hospital, from where she was referred to the district hospital in Noida sector 30, where she died of her injuries. None of the hospitals in the city have a burns ward.

In her dying statement, Yadav said, the girl said her uncle’s neighbours had made the MMS using footage of her face from a video taken at a wedding. The police did not recover the video from the cellphones of the accused and suspect they deleted it.