UP: Woman sets house on fire to frame relatives, dies of burns; husband among 3 arrested

Police arrested a man, his brother-in-law and nephew after a woman died in a house fire in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district. Investigators alleged the woman and her husband set the blaze to implicate relatives in a property dispute, but she suffered fatal burn injuries during the incident

Bahraich: Police have arrested the husband of a 41-year-old woman who died in a house fire she allegedly started to implicate a few relatives she had a property dispute with, police said on Wednesday.

Besides the husband, the police on Tuesday also arrested her brother and her nephew in connection with the incident which took place in Nooruddin Chak village, an officer said.

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According to Superintendent of Police Vishwajeet Srivastava, on May 16, a police team responded to a call of fire and found a house engulfed in flames.

The fire was doused, and a woman, identified as Chanda, alias Mahboobi, was rushed to the district hospital and from there to Lucknow, where she died.

Initially, based on a complaint from her husband, a case was registered against Chanda’s stepbrother and two nephews.

However, during the investigation, police found that Chanda was involved in a property dispute with her stepbrothers and had allegedly planned to frame them in a criminal case.

According to the police, Chanda had been living at her parental home and, allegedly motivated by a property dispute, conspired with her husband, Rajeev, a resident of Jaipur, to set the house on fire.

The SP said CCTV footage from the night of the incident showed Rajeev carrying a jerrycan and moving around the house multiple times.

During questioning, Rajeev allegedly confessed that he and his wife together set the house on fire with the intention of framing her stepbrother and nephews, the officer said.

However, Chanda got caught in the blaze and suffered critical burn injuries.

Srivastava alleged that after the incident, Chanda’s brother, Shafi Ahmad, and nephew Shami Ahmad kept her at the house and did not inform the police for a long time.

The two were arrested on charges of conspiracy and failing to report to the police about the incident.