Patna: A woman from Bihar’s Bhojpur district was beaten up and put on a funeral pyre because she had failed to give birth to any children. The police reached the spot in time, dragged her off the pyre and rushed her to the hospital, where she is yet to regain consciousness.
Police said 35-year-old Putul Kumari’s in-laws had been torturing her for a long time. On Monday evening, Kumari was assaulted and her head was rammed against a wall until she lost consciousness.
Her in-laws put her in a coffin and took her to the bank of a river to cremate her quickly. The accused also arranged a funeral pyre and put her on it. Witnesses said they were about to light the funeral pyre when a passerby identified as Manjeet Tiwari heard a groaning sound coming from within and got suspicious.
He called up the local police and informed them. The local police reached the spot and removed the logs put over the unconsciousness woman and then admitted her to the local hospital.
“We have registered the case and [are] conducting raids to nab the accused persons. All are absconding now,” police official Avadhesh Kumar Singh told the local media on Tuesday. He said they were waiting for Kumari to regain consciousness.
“We will record her statement once she comes to senses,” the police official added.
According to the victim’s brother Ganesh Thakur, she got married to Ravindra Thakur a decade ago and her in-laws had been torturing her as she didn’t bear any child.
An almost similar story was reported in November last year when a middle-aged woman was burnt alive along with her two young daughters by her in-laws as she had failed to bear a male child.
According to police, the woman and her daughters, aged eight and five, were doused in flammable liquid before being set on fire by her husband and others in Bihar’s Kaimur district.
