A 26-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat died on Friday while being treated at a hospital in New Delhi, two days after he allegedly set himself on fire near Parliament, PTI reported.
The man, identified as Jitendra Kumar, attempted to self-immolate using petrol in a park at the Parliament complex roundabout at 3.30 pm on Wednesday. Security personnel deployed in the area helped extinguish the fire.
Kumar was taken to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital where he was being treated. He sustained 95% burn injuries, PTI reported.
“He passed away at around 2 am [on Friday],” The Indian Express quoted an unidentified police officer as saying. “The post-mortem examination has been done, and the report is awaited. His body was handed over to his family.”
Deputy Commissioner of Police Devesh Mahla said that Kumar was upset due to a personal enmity, the newspaper reported.
The police found certain documents during their investigation into the matter, which revealed that three cases were registered against Kumar in May 2021, April 2022 and May 2024 in Baghpat, The Indian Express quoted Mahla as saying.
“In his [police] statement, he had alleged local police of not probing the case properly,” Mahla said.
In his statement, Kumar also named a man who he accused of troubling him and his family for a few years, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying.
Kumar’s cousin Gaurav told the newspaper that no authority had listened to their family about the alleged harassment.
Certain persons had assaulted Kumar’s father in 2021, according to Gaurav. “When his family tried to lodge a case, Jitendra got booked instead,” The Indian Express quoted him as saying.
The same persons who assaulted the father filed another case against Kumar in 2022, he alleged.
The same group tried to run over Kumar and his father in 2024, Gaurav claimed, adding that another case was registered against the 26-year-old. “They kept threatening him and his family to stay silent over all these years,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
Gaurav said that Kumar had been jailed for 1.5 months in one of these cases.
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