Video of Kanpur incident victim narrating her ordeals before death surfaces

A video footage of the woman who was burnt alive at Madauli village in UP's rural Kanpur during the anti-encroachment drive, has surfaced. In the video the deceased woman before the fire incident was saying that despite repeated appeal to the officials, they bulldozed their hutment.

Kanpur (rural): In a video surfaced recently, the victim of the Kanpur dehat incident who was charred to death during an anti-encroachment drive says her hutment has been bulldozed despite repeated appeals to the officials. In the video shot before her death, victim Pramila Dixit can be seen crying about the ordeals she and her family has been facing since a long time because of the encroachment authorities in Delhi.

On January 14, Dixit had gone to District Magistrate's office with a plea that her hutment should not be razed because she took loans to construct it. "But the officials from the district administration didn't listen to my plea and demolished the hutment. Officials didn't even give us time to make an alternative arrangement. The notice was not served on us."

Speaking in between sobs, Pramila can be heard saying in the video, "Where will we go now? No one was listening to our pleas. We are facing hard times."

Earlier, the administration's alleged callous approach came to light during an anti-encroachment drive in Uttar Pradesh's rural Kanpur last Monday. A mother-daughter duo living in the area was charred to death due to the 'mishandling' of the situation. Several locals said that the situation could have been prevented.

Officials from the rural Kanpur administration along with the JCB machine had gone to Madauli village to raze the illegal hutments. Officials deputed at the spot ordered the JCB driver to go ahead with the demolition of the hutment without ensuring that the mother-daughter duo was sleeping inside the hut, local people said.

Officials present there asked the JCB driver to demolish the hut. As per the instructions, the driver moved the JCB and razed the structure. The JCB machine moved toward the hutment. When the JCB machine dashed against the hutment, the structure caught fire.

How exactly the hutment caught fire is still a matter of investigation. When the hutment caught fire, officials and policemen fled from the spot. Screams of help were heard inside the hutment. It was too late until the duo was rescued.