india

Updated: Sep 17, 2019 08:55 IST

Police arrested three people, including two women, on Monday for allegedly setting ablaze a 20-year-old Dalit man after locking him up inside a room in Uttar Pradesh’s Hardoi district.

The man, identified only as Abhishek, was burnt to death on Saturday night in a possible hate crime over his relationship with a 19-year-old woman from a “higher caste”. The woman was one of the three people arrested, the other two being her uncle and aunt.

A senior police official said Abhishek was in a relationship with the woman for six years but the victim’s uncle, identified only by his first name Raju, said the crime was to avenge an old family enmity.

Raju told police that the news of Abhishek’s death led to his 60-year-old mother’s demise from shock. The mother, Rambeti, was admitted to a local hospital for the past few days.

According to a complaint filed by the victim’s uncle, on Saturday evening, Abhishek was returning from a relative’s house in the district after arranging Rs 25,000 for his mother’s treatment when he was called by the woman and decided to meet her.

But her relatives came to know of it and intercepted him.

In the complaint to the police, the uncle claimed Abhishek was beaten, confined to a room and burnt to the death, said superintendent of police, Hardoi, Alok Priyadarshi. The uncle also claimed that the money with Abhishek was snatched by the attackers.

Locals who rushed to the spot on hearing the young man’s cries took him to a hospital, from where he was referred to a Lucknow hospital. He succumbed to his injuries on the way to Lucknow on Sunday, Priyadarshi added.

On Monday, police arrested the woman, her uncle and aunt. Two neighbours have also been booked but they are on the run. A murder case hasn’t been registered, though. Those arrested have been booked under other sections, including the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The police said more sections would be added after the postmortem report.