Lucknow, Aug. 4: Sangeeta Singh, 32, was saved from becoming a sati just in time after she had been dragged to her husband’s pyre in front of her three-year-old daughter in a Fatehpur village yesterday.

The panchayat head of Kathola village, Mamta Devi, has been named in the FIR Sangeeta filed after she was rescued by residents of a neighbouring village, additional superintendent of police, Fatehpur, Uday Singh, said.

Randas Singh, 45, had died of cirrhosis of the liver on July 30 when Sangeeta was away at her parents’ place in a nearby village, police said. A post-mortem was conducted before the body was handed over to his family on Wednesday night.

Yesterday, when the body was being cremated, Sangeeta arrived at the burning ghat with her daughter Suman. In the FIR, she said Mamta, her husband Surendra Kumar and Randas’s brother-in-law Shiv Prasad started abusing her as soon as she reached, blaming her for the death.

They stripped her and dragged her to the pyre, screaming: “Die with him to save your soul from the shame of your husband’s death.”

“A section of residents from a neighbouring village intervened and saved the woman. She later lodged an FIR against the village panchayat chief and two others. We are trying to nab them,” Uday Singh said.

Suman was questioned by the police on her mother’s humiliation by the villagers.

Sangeeta was married to Randas, a farmer with about 12 acres of land, seven years ago. But relations between them had soured because of his drinking habit and for the past year, she had been staying more and more at her parents’ place in nearby Birodhpur village. She was at Birodhpur with Suman when news of Randas’s death reached her.

His sister, who also lived in Kathola, had been looking after Randas during his long illness.

Mamta and Randas’s family accused Sangeeta of neglecting her husband and causing his death, she said. The young widow, who has gone back to her parents, has been provided security, the police officer said.

In May, a woman in another village near Fatehpur, which is 180 km from Lucknow, was said to have committed sati.

Vidyawati burnt to death on her husband’s pyre in Rarhi-Bujurg village, about 2 km from Kathola, after Lakhanpal Lodhi, 42, was found dead with injury marks, villagers had told the police.

An eyewitness said: “Only Lakhanpal’s brother Premlal tried to hold her back but the frail man wasn’t up to the job.”

A case was registered against 200 villagers for abetment of suicide. Three brothers of Lakhanpal, who lived with him, were among the accused.

The villagers who were venerating Vidyawati as sati had accused her of adultery when she was alive. They believed that her alleged lover, Rohit, had murdered Lakhanpal and that she might have played a part.

The police now suspect the villagers might have pushed her onto her husband’s pyre. “We arrested Rohit later and lodged a murder case against villagers for their role in the murder,” Uday Singh said.