Woman Dies After Husband Sets Her Ablaze With 2 Daughters, Stages Fire As Accident

A woman has succumbed to death in India after her husband allegedly set her ablaze along with their two young daughters.

The suspect, who had an affair with another woman, plotted to kill his family to get rid of them and attempted to stage the fire as an accident, according to police.

The 35-year-old woman, Preeti Shantaram Patil, and her two children, Sameera, 14, and Samiksha, 11, from Thane, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, were hospitalized with severe burn injuries after a fire broke out at their house Sunday morning.

Preeti succumbed to death later that day while receiving treatment. Her daughters, on the other hand, remain hospitalized with 90% burns, a police officer said, as per The Times of India.

The fire was originally seen as an accident, but an investigation later revealed that the victims were deliberately set ablaze by the woman's husband, Prasad Shantaram Patil.

Prasad had an affair with another woman and constantly harassed his wife and daughters, authorities found. They believe the suspect plotted the incident and staged it as an accident but got injured as he was setting his family on fire. He is currently receiving treatment in a hospital.

The fire occurred at around 5:30 a.m., but it was only around 8:30 a.m. that cops were informed about it. Police now believe that the three-hour delay may have cost Preeti her life, Times Now News reported.

The investigators initially registered a case of attempted murder against Prasad, but he is expected to face charges of murder after they receive the post-mortem report.

In a similar incident in July, a man died in India after he set his car on fire with him, his wife and their son inside. The man, identified as Ramraj Bhat, from Nagpur district of the central state of Maharashtra, set his vehicle ablaze in an apparent bid to kill himself and his family due to financial struggles. Bhat reportedly took his family out in the car saying he was taking them for lunch. On the way to the restaurant, however, he stopped the vehicle, doused everyone with petrol and ignited the car's interior. Bhat died inside the burning car, but his wife and son managed to escape the vehicle alive, sustaining injuries.