Dewas District officials however said the husband had tried to set the woman ablaze.
Barely two weeks after nationwide outrage over a video of policemen seen thrashing a farmer couple in Madhya Pradesh trying to protect their crop, a woman in the state allegedly attempted to set herself on fire to stop government officials from destroying her crops.
Savra Bi and her family protested when government revenue staff, accompanied by policemen, reached the farmland in Atwas village in Dewas district with an earth-mover to create a passage through the standing soybean crop on Tuesday.
When the team did not budge, she allegedly doused herself with petrol and set herself on fire.
Dewas District Collector Chandramauli Shukla, however, said that the woman's husband tried to set her ablaze to try and stop the officials.
According to him, two cousins Ramzan Khan and Mehmood Khan had agreed before the revenue court to allow a passage to be paved through the two agricultural fields.
But at the last moment, Ramzan Khan apparently had a change of heart and brought his wife into the fields and set her dupatta on fire, Mr Shukla said.
A government official rushed to save the woman but the team was attacked by Ramzan Khan's family, injuring the official, the District Collector said.
"The woman, who sustained five percent burns is stated out of danger and a case of rioting has been lodged against the 11 persons for assaulting the government team," he said.
However, the woman's husband Ramzan Khan has claimed that he was not present at the spot when the incident happened.
"My wife attempted suicide after seeing the standing soybean crop being crushed by the government team with JCB machine," he alleged.
The Congress was quick to lash out at the government over the incident with state party chief and former Chief Minister Kamal Nath tweeting the video, saying, "A sister was forced to self-immolate in the rule of someone who likes to get himself called a mama (uncle)."
On July 14, a Dalit couple had attempted suicide by consuming pesticide when a government team ran an earth-mover on crops planted by the family in Guna district and were beaten up by police for trying to stop them.
The government team had gone to clear the encroachment on the land which had been allocated for a college.