A woman and her mother tried to immolate themselves outside the district magistrate’s office in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao city on Thursday alleging police inaction in a rape case, IANS reported. The complainant is from the same village as the woman who has accused MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar of rape.

Security personnel outside the magistrate’s office stopped the immolation attempt, following which the two women were taken to the Makhi police station.

Three men abducted her from her home on July 1 and then raped her, the woman told the police. She added that the three men had come to inform her that her father was seriously injured in an accident and offered to accompany her to the hospital. However, they instead took her through a forest, where they raped her, The Times of India reported.

The woman said she had filed a complaint, after which the police registered a case but have not yet arrested anyone. She added that she was being threatened by the accused. “Immolation was the last option to end our trauma,” she said.

However, Circle Officer Gaurav Tripathi said that one of the accused had already been arrested and sent to jail. Two others accused in the case were absconding, he said, adding that they would be arrested soon.

The Makhi police had been pulled up by authorities in the past for going easy on expelled BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar, thereby driving the Unnao rape complainant to set fire to herself outside the chief minister’s residence in Lucknow. The case received nationwide attention, following which the investigation was taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Sengar is currently lodged at the Tihar jail.

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