Malda, Aug. 12: A woman today succumbed to injuries suffered on July 30 when her sari got caught in the belt of a machine at a rice mill in Manikchak where she had gone to husk her paddy.

Maharathi Mondal, 40, whose husband is a day labourer, had been admitted to the district hospital in Malda town soon after the accident. She died there this morning.

“We were not even aware of the accident. We came to know about it from you after she died in the hospital,” the officer-in-charge of the Manikchak police station, Sanjay Ghosh, told reporters today.

The body has been sent for post-mortem, the officer-in-charge added.

According to Ghosh, a case has been started against the owner of the husking mill.

“He is absconding. The mill, too, has been shut from the day the incident took place,” Ghosh said.

Maharathi used to stay with her husband in Paschim Narayanpur village in the Manikchak gram panchayat area, more than 30km from Malda town. The couple had two children.

The upa pradhan of the gram panchayat, Shankar Mondal, said Maharathi’s family was too poor to afford her treatment at the district hospital. “Their neighbours had been bearing the medical expenses by raising subscriptions,” he said.

The deputy chief of the gram panchayat added that the owner of the mill, Biren Mondal, had pulled down the main switch of the unit as soon as Maharathi’s sari got caught in the husking machine.

“He had also arranged to send her to the hospital,” Shankar added.

This is for the first time that such an accident had taken place in the mill, the rural leader said.