Girl burned alive by four youths in Patna

PATNA: A 15-year-old girl was allegedly burned alive by four youths of her village for protesting sexual harassment at Mahendrapuri village under Hathidah police station in rural Patna late Monday night.
The incident took place when the victim was sleeping in her house. Four youths barged into the room, drenched her in kerosene and set the girl on fire. On hearing her cry for help, the girl's mother, who was sleeping in another room, came to her rescue and suffered minor burn injuries.
Police said the girl succumbed to injuries during treatment at a private hospital.Her mother was released from the hospital after first aid, police said. She has accused Pradip Mahto, Deepak Mahto, Vijay Kumar and Amit Kumar of killing her daughter.
The mother told the interrogators that Pradip, a next door neighbour, used to harass her daughter on way to school. She was a student of Class IX at a local government school. The accused got agitated when she refused to talk to the youths, an investigating officer quoted the victim's mother as saying.
SP (rural) Kantesh Kumar Mishra, however, said the motive of the accused is y et to be ascertained. "The victim's mother, an eyewitness in the case, has not mentioned the cause of the incident in the FIR," he said. The SP said froth was seen oozing out from the girl's mouth when the police reached the hospital. "We are waiting for the postmortem report. The viscera have been preserved. A forensic team also visited the site and collected evidence. It will not be prudent to make any comment at this stage," he said, adding that the accused were absconding.
Police said the everything in the girl's room were found intact.