Forced to drink acid after rape

Piyush Srivastava, TT, Lucknow, March 24: A woman was forced to drink acid on a train by three men who had allegedly raped her three months ago and targeted her thrice later with beatings and acid attacks.

The three were arrested in her hometown of Rae Bareli's Unchahar minutes after chief minister Yogi Adityanath visited the woman today in a Lucknow hospital where doctors described her condition as critical. The woman, who is married and in her early thirties, is learnt to have told the chief minister that there was a property dispute between her and the attackers' families.

After being forced to swallow the acid yesterday, the woman could not alight from the train at her hometown but later managed to give her tormentors the slip and got off at Lucknow, 75km down the line.

Vinod Yadav, superintendent of railway police in Lucknow, said the victim was unable to speak but had somehow scribbled a few lines on a scrap of paper about her ordeal. "More details of the incident will be known only after her condition improves," Yadav said.

Rae Bareli police said the three men had raped the woman three months ago, followed by a beating and acid attack, and had in recent weeks been mounting pressure on her to withdraw the cases.

"We have asked the hospital to provide her the best treatment," Adityanath said after meeting the victim at King George's Medical University. Later, state child and women welfare minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi also visited the woman in the hospital.

The Adityanath-led BJP government announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the victim and suspended four cops in Unchahar for alleged inaction despite repeated complaints from the woman fearing more attacks by the tormentors.

The action against the cops came a day after Adityanath conducted a surprise inspection of Hazratganj police station, in the heart of Lucknow, and asked the officers to make available pen and papers to people who wish to file a complaint. Police officers have been accused of claiming a shortage of stationery, making people in distress wait and asking them to step out and buy pen and paper from the market to write their complaints.