Kolkata:
Residents of a slum in Howrah were shocked last evening to suddenly see a young girl, all aflame, running to a pool of water and jumping into it.
They rushed to her assistance, helped her take off her burning clothes and took her in a cycle-rickshaw to the local hospital. Later, as she turned critical, she was sent to the SSKM hospital in Kolkata where she is now in a critical condition with 70 per cent burns.
The horror story that has emerged is that the 10-year-old girl, daughter of a truck driver, had gone to relieve herself in an open space near her slum when she was grabbed by a man from the back who allegedly tried to molest her.
As the girl struggled and saw the man's face, she recognised him and shouted that she would tell her parents. That man apparently then doused her with some kerosene or petrol and set a match to her.
A neighbour, Usha Jaiswal, who saw her running said, "I have never seen such a sight. All her clothes were on fire and the girl was screaming. She jumped into a pool of water and when we went to her, we saw that she was very badly burnt."
The accused, according to what the girl managed to tell her mother, is apparently a man called Kundan who lives nearby and had an altercation with the girl's mother some weeks ago over collecting water from a public tap. He had threatened revenge.
Kundan is absconding but his older brother has been detained by the police.
The mother who was in hospital with her daughter said, "I just want to go back home with my daughter."
The police has registered a case of attempted murder and rape at the father's insistence. However, the girl could not be medically examined for rape because of her physical condition.