Shahjahanpur: A college student, who was found without clothes and severely burnt lying along a national highway in Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh, has claimed she was set on fire after a failed attempt to gang-rape her, police said on Wednesday.
According to Superintendent of Police S Anand, the girl told investigators that three people tried to rape her in a field near Rai Kheda village on Monday and when they did not succeed, they poured kerosene and set her on fire. The BA second-year student was admitted to a hospital in the district and later referred to Lucknow.
The police officer, however, added that she frequently changed her statements and also said she was not aware how she reached the hospital.
In CCTV footage, the girl — a student of a college run by a trust of former Union minister Swami Chinmayanand — was seen coming down alone from the third floor, the police said. "Investigations with the help of CCTV footage have found that the girl went out of the college campus from a broken outer wall about 20 minutes after entering the premises and was seen walking alone on a canal road," Anand said. Prior to that, the girl could be seen talking to her friends outside a classroom and visiting a library, the SP said.
Three teams led by Deputy SPs as well as an SOG team have been deployed.
Besides, another team led by a DSP with five policemen is present in Lucknow's SPM Civil Hospital where she is undergoing treatment for 72 per cent burns.