Old woman battered to death for objecting to less ration

In a shocking incident, a 75-year-old woman was battered to death in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar district, about 500 km from here, by a ration dealer after she objected to being given less ration.

Aasi Khatoon was battered to death, even as others who were in the queue, remained mute spectators.

The shocking incident occurred at Khedi Firozabad village in the district on Friday evening.

According to police here, Aasi, whose husband was a daily wager, had an argument with Naseem, the brother of the ration shop dealer Shamim, after she claimed that the latter had given her less ration than what was entitled to her.

She claimed that there was some problem with the weighing scales used by Shamim and as a result she had got less ration.

Shamim flew into a rage after her persistent objection and reportedly thrashed Aasi and later banged her head against the wall.

Her family members who reached there on getting the information rushed Aasi, who was bleeding profusely to the hospital, but she was declared brought dead by the doctors.

The killing triggered tension in the village and the police had a tough time in persuading the locals to allow the body to be taken for postmortem examination.

The perpetrators are absconding and a hunt has been launched to nab them.