Patna: In a shocking incident reminiscent of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape, a 35-year-old woman died after a miscreant inserted an iron rod into her private parts when she resisted rape. The victim had four children, the eldest being 15-year-old.

The incident took place in Naubatpur block of Patna district on late Wednesday evening but the woman died after battling for life at a local hospital in Patna on Thursday owing to excessive bleeding. The police have formed a Special Investigation team to investigate the murder.

Reports said the woman had gone out of her home for some work when a local youth grabbed her and tried to rape her. When she strongly resisted, the accused allegedly got enraged and picked up an iron rod lying nearby and inserted it into her private parts following which she bled profusely, police said. Writhing in pain, she somehow crawled back home and narrated the incident to her family members who admitted her to a local hospital.

As her condition was critical, doctors referred her to the local Patna Medical College and Hospital, but she died barely after reaching the hospital due to excessive blessing.

The victim’s husband is a daily wage earner.

Taking the matter seriously, the police have arrested the accused and sent him to jail. “The incident is really cruel and gruesome. As soon as the incident came to light, the police did their best and successfully nabbed the main accused who has been sent to jail,” Bihar additional director general of police SK Singhal told the media on Friday.

He added the police have formed a Special Investigation Team to scientifically probe the incident. He said the chargesheet in the case would be filed soon and the case would be tried speedily.

The incident has brought to mind the 2012 Delhi gang-rape incident in which 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern was beaten, gang-raped and tortured in a private bus in which she was travelling. Eleven days after the assault, she was transferred to a hospital in Singapore for emergency treatment but died from her injuries two days later.

Incidents of rape remain a matter of grave concern in Bihar, and according to an official report, a total of 702 cases of rape have been reported till July this year. Last year, altogether, 1,008 incidents of rape had been reported, followed by 1,041 incidents of rape in 2015, 1,127 in 2014 and 1,128 in 2013.

Similarly, 927 cases were reported in 2012, 934 in 2011, 795 in 2010, 929 in 2009, 1,041 in 2008, 1,122 in 2007, 1,083 in 2006 and 973 in 2005 — the year when chief minister Nitish Kumar came to power dethroning 15 years of Rashtriya Janata Dal regime.

The criminal incidents refuse to die down despite repeated claims by the Nitish Kumar government of curbing crime. The gravity of the situation is underlined from the fact that a total of 132,516 incidents of cognisable offences have been reported till July this year. Last year, a total of 189,681 cognisable offences had been reported.