Barasat, April 27: A seven-year-old girl was mangled to death tonight after she caught her frock in a generator’s fan belt and her arms were sucked into the machine, set up at a Trinamul Congress panchayat poll rally.

The sight of a blood-splattered Ratna Das, her life ebbing out fast, provoked a mob to torch the campaign dais and ransack the candidate’s home as all local Trinamul leaders fled the North 24-Parganas village.

The rotating blades had mutilated the child’s arms, and twisted and tossed her little body about before the huge generator toppled over and crushed her. She died in an auto-rickshaw on the way to the Barasat district hospital, 3km from her home in Kareya-Kadambagachhi.

Since the area does not receive electricity, Trinamul workers had brought a large generator — the sort used at wedding halls — on a pushcart and placed it on a narrow village road, police said.

“The villagers had objected, saying it was blocking the road, but were ignored. This fanned their anger after the tragedy,” an officer said.

The unfamiliar bright lights had attracted Ratna and she had set off for the field where the meeting was being held, her father Krishna Das, a farm labourer, said.

“It was around 7pm. I had just returned from work when people came running and told me my daughter had met with an accident. I sprinted across to the field…. Her arms were entangled in the fan belt and the machine had fallen on her,” said Krishna, 35.

“The accident happened while she was walking past the generator,” an officer said. “The villagers switched the generator off, ripped the fan belt and pulled her free. But it was too late.”

Several hundred villagers, carrying torches and kerosene lamps, went out looking for local Trinamul leaders but could find none.

After burning the dais down, the mob vandalised Trinamul gram panchayat candidate Ranjit Mondal’s home and stationery shop.

Local Trinamul member Rabin Mondal said party leaders began fleeing the moment the accident occurred. “What else could we do?” he said.