'Save me': Man recounts harrowing 90 minutes as girl, set ablaze, knocked on his door; calls for justice
"
A 15-year-old girl, allegedly set on fire by three masked men in Odisha's Puri district, was transferred to AIIMS New Delhi, where she remains in stable condition with 70-75%burn injuries.
The class 9 dropout was walking to a relative's home around 8.30am Saturday when she was reportedly intercepted near a river embankment, rendered unconscious by a chemical-lacedcloth, and doused with kerosene before being set ablaze.
Screaming for help, she fled to a nearby house, where Dukshishyam Senapati extinguished the flames and gave her fresh clothes.
'Girl was on fire and screaming in pain'
Recalling the harrowing moment, Senapati said that when he answered his door, he was stunned to find the girl engulfed in flames and crying in agony, as he later explained to DGP YB Khurania during the official's site visit.
"It was around 8.30 am when the girl came to my house, screaming. With the help of my wife, I doused the fire and gave her water as she was very thirsty.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
American Investor Warren Buffett Recommends: 5 Books For Turning Your Life Around
Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List
Undo
Later, the women of my family changed her clothes," he said.
Upon questioning, the girl informed Senapati that three unidentified men had set her ablaze. She explained being abducted by motorcycle-riding assailants whilst returning from meeting a friend.
"She said she was walking back home after meeting a friend when she was picked up by three men who arrived on motorcycles. The faces of these men were half-covered, and they took her to a place near the Bhargavi riverbank.
She could not tell their names. She could only say that they covered her face with a handkerchief and poured some substance before setting her on fire," he said.
Senapati noticed that although the girl mentioned being bound during the abduction, her hands were free when she arrived. After learning her father's details, he contacted her family. The large crowd that gathered prevented further conversation with the victim.
Despite searching the area, Senapati couldn't locate the perpetrators. He explained that the attackers fled after setting her alight, presumably expecting her to perish. However, the girl managed to escape and reach his house.
Due to delayed ambulance response, they resorted to an auto rickshaw for hospital transport. The girl remained at his residence for approximately 90 minutes.
The incident has created fear in the village, particularly among children who are now afraid to venture out alone. Senapati urged swift arrest of the culprits.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
33 minutes ago
- Time of India
8 dead, 28 injured in stampede at Haridwar's Mansa Devi temple
Haridwar: A stampede on the pedestrian route to Mansa Devi temple near Har Ki Pauri claimed eight lives and injured 28 others, at least four critically, on Sunday morning. Those dead were identified as Shanti Devi (60), her husband Rambharose (65), both from Badaun, UP; Sakal Dev (35) from Araria, Bihar; Arush (6), Vicky Saini (18), Vishal Kumar (19) -- all three from Rampur, UP; Vakeel Prasad (45) from Barabanki, UP; and Vipin Saini (19) from Kashipur, Udham Singh Nagar. Diksha (26) and her daughter Akankshi (4) from Rampur; Phoolmati (52), Lucknow; and Kavita (23), Baghpat, UP, are said to be in critical condition. Officials at AIIMS Rishikesh said that 15 persons were brought to the hospital, out of which, five were discharged, four admitted in ICU ward and six in other wards. More than 5,000 devotees -- mainly from UP and Bihar -- were present on the route around 8:30 am at the time of the incident, which was possibly triggered by "rumours of electrical wires causing electrocution". Videos from the spot showed a huge rush of people, including children and women, at the narrow entrance of the temple. Eyewitnesses claimed there were hardly any efforts made to control the crowd. Speaking to TOI, the area's SHO Ritesh Shah said the crowd flow was "nothing unusual" in the morning. "We've seen even larger crowds during special occasions like kanwar yatra and Ganga Dussehra. The stampede may have been caused due to rumours after a few youngsters climbed the wall, and thereafter some devotees began to panic and fell on each other. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Baking Soda Tricks Everyone Should Know About Beach Raider Undo On any given day, six police personnel are present inside the temple premises and two stationed at the entrance of the pedestrian route. " CM Pushkar Singh Dhami visited the hospital to assess the condition of the injured and announced an ex-gratia compensation of Rs 2 lakh for the families of those dead and Rs 50,000 for each injured person. He also directed Haridwar district magistrate (DM) to provide urgent relief and assistance to all the victims and their families. "The pedestrian route, starting from the Upper Road, was immediately closed after the incident to avoid additional pressure at the site. Injured persons were initially shifted to district hospital. People died of chest injuries and no one died of electrocution," said DM Mayur Dixit. The DM added that a detailed magisterial probe has been ordered. President Droupadi Murmu and PM Narendra Modi were among those who expressed grief over the loss of lives in the stampede. In a post, the PM stated: "Condolences to those who lost their loved ones. May the injured recover soon." Later in the day, Mahant Ravindra Puri, president of Mansa Devi temple trust, announced Rs 5 lakh for the families of the dead and Rs 1 lakh for the injured. Considered a 'sidhpeeth', Mansa Devi temple is situated on the Bilva hilltop in Haridwar. It is accessible by ropeway as well as pedestrian route. It attracts a large number of pilgrims round the year. Earlier, the way to the temple -- located in the vicinity of Haridwar range of Rajaji Tiger Reserve -- was arduous, and pilgrims had to walk through narrow serpentine paths to the hilltop (about 1,500 feet above sea level) on foot, but later a road was laid to make the journey easier. In 1995, Haridwar civic body got a ropeway installed.
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
From Obama's ‘treason' to missing gold reserves, the wildest conspiracy theories consuming Trump's Washington
OK, so US President Donald Trump's name is in the Jeffrey Epstein files. But who put it there? Could it possibly have been Barack Obama from his prison cell? Or a tranquilized Hillary Clinton? Oh wait, maybe it was etched onto the documents by Joe Biden's magical autopen. Or is that mixing up different scandals? It's so hard to keep up with the latest wild notions circulating in the capital and beyond. Washington is awash in conspiracy theories these days, a cascade of suspicion and intrigue promoted or denied in the Oval Office, ricocheting around Capitol Hill and cable news and propelled at warp speed across social media. No commander in chief in his lifetime has been as consumed by conspiracy theories as Trump, and now they seem to be consuming him. They have been the rocket fuel for his political career since the days when he spread the lie that Obama was secretly born overseas and therefore not eligible to be president. More than a decade later, Trump is coming full circle by trying to divert attention from the Epstein conspiracy theory with a new-and-improved one about Obama supposedly committing treason. The harmonic convergence of competing conspiracies has overshadowed critical policy issues facing America's leaders at the moment, whether it's new tariffs that could dramatically reshape the global economy or the collapse of ceasefire talks meant to end the war in the Gaza Strip. The Epstein matter so spooked Speaker Mike Johnson that he abruptly recessed the House for the summer rather than confront it. The allegations lodged against Obama so outraged the former president that he emerged from political hibernation to express his indignation at even having to address them. The whispers and questions — 'this nonsense,' as Trump put it — followed the president all the way to Scotland, where he landed Friday for a visit to his golf club. 'You're making a very big thing over something that's not a big thing,' he complained to reporters, suggesting, in his latest bid at conspiracy deflection, that instead of him, the news media should be looking at Epstein's other boldface friends like former President Bill Clinton. 'Don't talk about Trump,' he said. Conspiracy theories have a long place in American history. Many Americans still believe that someone else had a hand in killing President John F. Kennedy, that the moon landings were faked, that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job or that the government is hiding proof of extraterrestrial visitors in Roswell, New Mexico. Sixty-five percent of Americans told Gallup pollsters in 2023 that they think there was a conspiracy behind Kennedy's assassination. Some conspiracy theories do turn out to be true, of course, or have some basis. But presidents generally have not been the ones spreading dubious stories. To the contrary, they traditionally have viewed their role as dispelling doubts and reinforcing faith in institutions. President Lyndon B. Johnson created the Warren Commission to investigate his predecessor's murder specifically to keep rumors and guesswork from proliferating. (Spoiler alert: It didn't.) Trump, by contrast, relishes conspiracy theories, particularly those that benefit him or smear his enemies without any evident care for whether they are true or not. 'There have been other conspiratorial political movements in the country's past,' said Geoff Dancy, a University of Toronto professor who teaches about conspiracy theories. 'But they have never occupied the upper echelons of power until the last decade.' Conspiracy theories are not the exclusive preserve of Trump and the political right. Around the time of last month's anniversary of the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, some on the left once again advanced the notion that the whole shooting episode had been staged to make the Republican candidate into a political martyr. Trump, however, has stirred the plot pot more than any other major political figure. In the six months since retaking office, he has remained remarkably cavalier about suggesting nefarious schemes even as he heads the government supposedly orchestrating some of them. He suggested the nation's gold reserves at Fort Knox might be missing, resurrecting a decades-old fringe supposition, even though he would presumably be in position to know whether that was actually true, what with being president and all. 'If the gold isn't there, we're going to be very upset,' he told reporters. It fell to Scott Bessent, the decidedly nonconspiratorial Treasury secretary, to burst the bubble and reassure Americans that, no, the nation's reserves had not been stolen. 'All the gold is present and accounted for,' he told an interviewer. Trump has played to long-standing suspicions by ordering the release of hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to the assassinations of Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., an act of transparency for historians and researchers that may shed important light on those episodes. But Trump has gone beyond simple theory floating to make his own alternate reality official government policy. Some applicants for jobs in the second Trump administration were asked whether Trump won the 2020 election that he actually lost; those who gave the wrong answer were not helping their job prospects, forcing those rooted in facts to decide whether to swallow the fabrication to gain employment. Trump has likewise claimed that Biden was so diminished toward the end of his term that his aides signed pardons without his knowledge using an autopen. Biden was certainly showing signs of age, but the autopen story was conjecture. Asked if he had uncovered proof, Trump said, 'I uncovered, you know, the human mind. I was in a debate with the human mind and I didn't think he knew what the hell he was doing.' The past week or so has seen a fusillade of Trumpian conspiracy theories, seemingly meant to focus attention away from the Epstein case. Tulsi Gabbard, the president's politically appointed intelligence chief, trotted out inflammatory allegations that Obama orchestrated a 'yearslong coup and treasonous conspiracy' by skewing the 2016 election interference investigation — despite the conclusions of a Republican-led Senate report signed by none other than Marco Rubio, now Trump's secretary of state. She also claimed that Hillary Clinton was 'on a daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers' during the 2016 campaign. Relying on this, Trump accused Obama of 'treason,' suggesting he should be locked up and going so far as to post a fake video showing his predecessor being handcuffed in the Oval Office and put behind bars. The idea of a president posting such an image of another president would once have been seen as a shocking breach of etiquette and corruption of the justice system, but in the Trump era it has become simply business as usual. For all that, the conspiracy theorist in chief has not been able to shake the Epstein case, which reflects the rise of the QAnon movement that believes America is run by a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles. Most of the files, the ones that his attorney general told him include his name, remain unreleased, bringing together an unlikely alliance of MAGA conservatives and liberal Democrats. It was well known that Trump was friends with Epstein, although they later fell out. So it's not clear what his name being in the files might actually mean. But Trump is not one to back down. Asked last week about whether he had been told his name was in the files, Trump again pointed the finger of conspiracy elsewhere. 'These files were made up by Comey,' he told reporters, referring to James Comey, the FBI director he had fired more than two years before Epstein died in prison in 2019. 'They were made up by Obama,' he went on. 'They were made up by the Biden administration.' The theories are endless.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
12 interstate theft accused held
1 2 3 4 Ranchi: A total of 12 accused wanted in two cases have been arrested on Saturday, Ranchi SSP Chandan Kumar Sinha said on Sunday. Nine were accused of robbing Namkum-based electricity department's central store on July 15. Another three members of a Durgapur-based gang were planning to steal from a power grid centre at Ormanjhi, he added. Police said that in the first case, 11 armed miscreants had broken into the Namkum-based electricity department's central store on July 15 and taken the employees captive before decamping with copper clips, conductors, and plate angles worth around Rs 16 lakh. The SSP said, "A case was registered and a special investigation team (SIT) led by DSP Amar Kumar Pandey formed to solve the case. Based on a tip-off and technical inputs, nine accused were arrested from different areas of the district. An auto rickshaw, a machine to cut wire, and the stolen materials were seized from the arrested." The nine arrested were identified as Dinesh Lohra, Rajesh Kumar Singh, Lallan Kumar Bhuiyyan, Jitu Kumar Singh, Furkan Mallick, Birendra Bedia, and Deepak Kumar Soni of different districts in the state and Jitendra Singh of Patna in Bihar, police said. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Struggling With Belly Fat? Try This at Home Home Fitness Hack Shop Now Undo During interrogation, Dinesh told police that they had sold the stolen items to Furkan and Deepak. Furkan sold the materials to Jitendra for Rs 4 lakh. Raids are under way to nab the others involved in the case, police added. Dinesh is an accused in five cases lodged with Patratu and Khalari police stations. SSP Sinha said, "In another operation, police on Saturday received a tip-off that a group was conducting surveillance around the power grid at Ormanjhi." A team arrested Jai Prakash Paswan, Dinesh Choudhary, and Bhola Choudhary, all natives of Durgapur in West Bengal, from near Chetanbadi village. A country-made pistol, two cartridges, a four-wheeler, a wire cutter and eatables were confiscated from them, the SSP added.
