Aurangabad: Maharashtra has the dubious distinction of being rocked by two incidents of women being set ablaze within 36 hours -- at Wardha and in Aurangabad.
While a 24-year-old college lecturer was set ablaze by a spurned suitor in Wardha's Hinganghat town on Monday morning, belated reports said on Sunday night, a 50-year old woman was assaulted and set ablaze in her home by a beer bar owner in Aurangabad's Andhari village.
She had resisted his overtures and attempts to barge into her home. Having suffered 95 per cent burns, she was battling for life at a government hospital.
The accused, Santosh Mohite (50), also a resident of Andhari, was arrested late Tuesday night, an official at Sillod (rural) police station said.
The woman, who is married and has two daughters, lived alone in her house and Mohite tried to enter the place around 11 pm on Sunday. When she tried to thwart him, Mohite forcibly entered the house, doused her with kerosene kept on the premises and set her on fire.
He then locked the door from outside and ran away, an official said. On hearing the cries of the woman, some of her relatives staying in the vicinity rushed to the site and took her to a local hospital, from where she was referred to the government- run Ghati Hospital in Aurangabad city.
"Her condition is critical and she is presently on oxygen support," the hospital's medical superintendent Suresh Harbade told PTI.
