Tamluk, Nov. 5: A woman was tied to a tree and set ablaze after a village kangaroo court in East Midnapore pronounced the death sentence on her for an “illicit relationship”.

Thirty-five-year-old Shiuli Mondal (name changed), who has a 12-year-old daughter, somehow crawled to the home of a health worker with 60 per cent burns and was admitted to a block hospital.

Police have arrested Pankaj Mondal, a Trinamul supporter and husband of a Ramchak panchayat member, after taking Shiuli’s statement. Fourteen others named in the FIR, including Shiuli’s sister-in-law, are absconding.

Shiuli, a domestic help, got married 15 years ago to a farmer in Patashpur, also in East Midnapore. About 10 years ago, he went missing and Shiuli started living with her elder brother’s widow in Mogra, a village that is 30km from Tamluk town and falls under the Ramchak panchayat, dominated by Trinamul now.

According to her statement, some villagers accused her of an “illicit affair” and asked her to leave the village or kill herself at a shalishi on the night of October 27. “The villagers told me that I have to leave or commit suicide. I told them it was not possible for me as I have a 12-year-old girl. The next morning, another shalishi meeting was held in which I was given the death sentence.”

She said: “The villagers started thrashing me, tore my sari and tied me to a tree. One of them poured kerosene on me and others set me on fire.” As the flames engulfed her, the ropes with which she was tied got burnt. Shiuli freed herself and ran, with some of the villagers at her heels.

She slipped and fell into a ditch from where she crawled about 100 metres to the house of health worker Kalpana Das who took her to the Moyna block hospital.