The woman, raped in August, was attacked with acid allegedly by the same man.
A 25-year-old woman who refused to drop charges against a man accused of raping her last month in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr, was attacked with acid on Sunday. In hospital with burns on her face and neck, she told NDTV: "We know it will not stop here."
The woman, who is married and has a young son, was allegedly raped on August 9 by the man and his friend. The police filed a case against the two men only a few days ago after she went to court; for a month, she says, the police refused to accept her complaint.
"They (her attackers) said if we didn't drop the case they would destroy us," said the woman.
On Sunday, she and her husband were working in the fields when the alleged rapist came with his friends and demanded again that she withdraw her case. When she didn't budge, they threw acid at her. "They have thrown acid on me...now they are after my son," she said.
The attackers, known to be local goons, though names in the FIR, roam freely and have not been arrested.
Accusing the police of protecting them, the woman's husband said: "They won't let us live in peace...my family is living in fear and won't even come to the hospital...If the police had helped us, my wife wouldn't have been in hospital today."
Senior police officer Anish Ahmed Ansari dismissed the charge. "Arrests shall not be made unless we have evidence," he said, adding, "There is no threat, people have the freedom to go where they want."
Another police officer shockingly claimed that the woman was attacked by her husband over a "family dispute" over property.
Bulandhshahr in western Uttar Pradesh, around 500 km from Lucknow, has been in the media glare over the gang-rapes in July of a woman and her daughter who were pulled out of their family car while travelling on the highway.
The UP police was criticised by a court for its poor handling of the investigations. Six persons have been arrested in the case.