UP woman who accused BSP MP Atul Rai of rape dies a week after she sets herself, friend ablaze at Supreme Court Gate

A 24 year-old woman from eastern Uttar Pradesh, who had accused the Bahujan Samaj Party MP from Ghosi in Mau, Atul Rai, of rape in 2019, has unfortunately succumbed to her burns after she and her male friend set themselves afire outside the gates of the Supreme Court of India.

In May 2019, the woman had filed a case against Atul Rai, the MP from Ghosi, alleging that he had raped her at his residence in Varanasi. She had also alleged that Rai had made a video and threatened to circulate it on social media. The MP had initially denied the accusations, but was later arrested has been in jail for the past two years. 

Soon after this, a forgery case was registered in November 2020 by Atul Rai’s brother who had alleged that the women had produced her high school mark sheet while getting an FIR registered against a student leader on charges of molestation in 2015. “In the mark sheet, her date of birth was shown as March 10, 1997. But four years later (in 2019) when she got a rape case registered against MP Atul Rai, she submitted her high school mark sheet in which her date of birth was mentioned as June 10, 1997,” said a police officer quoting Pawan Kumar’s complaint.

On 4th of this August, a local court in Varanasi had issued a non-bailable warrant against the 24-year-old woman as she “remained untraceable despite several raids”,as stated by the police. “The court on Monday issued a non-bailable warrant against the woman,” said Station House Officer (Varanasi Cantonment Police Station) Rakesh Kumar Singh.

The woman has alleged that the police in Varanasi were colluding with the jailed Member of Parliament and his relatives in order to put pressure on her to retrieve her complaint. 

The woman and her friend then traveled to Delhi and did a Facebook Live video before dousing themselves in some liquid and setting themselves ablaze. They had accused the police of Varanasi for colluding with the MP and his relatives, but had no hopes of justice from the authorities. 

After reports of the couple’s self-immolation, the Uttar Pradesh (UP) police had suspended two policemen, Varanasi Cantt SHO Rakesh Singh and sub-inspector Girija Shankar Yadav, who were probing the forgery case against the woman. 

The woman who has suffered 85 percent burns in the immolation bid has died, just days after the woman’s friend had died of burn injuries. Both the friends were admitted to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in Delhi.