Rachna Sisodia was burned alive on a funeral pyre (Picture: CEN)

A woman was cremated by her family while still alive after a hospital wrongly declared her dead, doctors have said.

Rachna Sisodia, 24, suffered a lung infection and was taken to hospital in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state.

MP caught looking at porn on his phone in Thai parliament

Her husband, Devesh Chaudhury took her to a funeral pyre with some friends and burned her body.

But someone in the crowd thought that she was still alive so she was pulled out of the fire.


Her official cause of death was ‘cardiorespiratory arrest and acute respiratory distress syndrome’.

However, her post-mortem examination revealed there was ash in her lungs suggesting that she was alive when she was put onto a funeral pyre the following day by husband Devesh Chaudhary and his friends.



Two doctors said the cause of death was not lung infection but in fact ‘shock caused by being burnt alive’.

Rajesh Pandey, a senior police superintendent, told local media of the doctors’ verdict.

A police spokesman added: ‘This happens when someone is burnt alive. The particles go inside with the breath. If a person is dead, such particles cannot reach the lungs and the windpipe.

Wearing glasses 'could stop you catching coronavirus'

‘So, the doctors concluded that the woman was burnt alive on the pyre.’

However, the Rachna’s uncle Kailash Singh accused her husband Devesh and 11 relatives of raping and killing her. He said that she had been reported missing on December 13.

Police are taking the accusations seriously but all the men have disappeared, they say.

However, the doctors at Sharda maintain that Rachna did in fact die at their hospital and post-mortem doctor Pankaj Mishra says he cannot be sure that the body he examined was that of Rachna, due to the extent of the burns on it.

Devesh told local media, from an unknown location, that his in-laws were trying to frame him and his relatives in a bid to acquire his property.

Doctors have also preserved a piece of bone for conducting DNA tests, which was handed over to the police. They did not say when DNA test results would be available.