Burning case: 'Killers had chopped off woman's hands'

After visiting Rampur Shyamchand village in Bihar where six members of an extremly backward caste family were burnt alive, a Bahujan Samaj Party fact-finding team Wednesday alleged the killers had chopped off both hands of the woman Babia Devi before setting her and her five children on fire.

Close relatives of Babia Devi told the team the killer had chopped her both hands before setting her and five children ablaze, Gandhi Azad, member of Parliament and in-charge of party affairs of Bihar, who headed the team, said in a statement.

• Six of family burnt alive in Bihar

By chopping off her hands, she was prevented from making efforts to save her children, Azad said quoting her relatives.

He quoted the relatives as having said the police had recovered the chopped hands of the woman with green bangles from the backyard of the thatched house.

The BSP leader alleged the local police was trying to hide facts and demanded a probe by the CID to unravel the truth.

Perturbed over police failure to nab the culprits even four days after the incident, the BSP leader alleged that it showed the "inefficency" of the state government.

"If the culprits are not arrested at the earliest, the BSP will launch an  agitation," he said.

Besides, Azad, other members of the fact-finding team were BSP's state party president Baban Singh Kushwaha and its general secretary Umesh Shrivastava.