At around 8 pm on Monday, residents of Banerjee Para in the Pashchim Putiary area of Haridevpur in the southern fringes of Calcutta were witness to a horrific scene of a middle-aged woman engulfed in fire and running down the streets, shrieking her lungs out but too late to be saved.

The victim later succumbed to her burns at the MR Bangur hospital where she was removed by the police after eyewitnesses dialed the emergency 100 number at the Lalbazar headquarters for help. Prior to her death, she managed to give her dying declaration where she indicted her partner, one Subir Biswas, for threatening to blackmail her and provoking her to set herself ablaze at his place in Haridevpur following an altercation where she had visited on Monday evening, police said.

Police also recovered a kerosene container from the scene of the occurrence alongside a matchbox and burnt matchsticks.

The accused partner of the victim remains at large following the incident, police confirmed. A case under sections 306 and 116 (sections governing abetment of suicide) of the IPC was registered against Biswwas at the Haridevpur police station.

Police said that as per the dying statement of the victim, a widow since 2016 and a resident of Bhowanipore, she was in a relationship with the accused who indulged in an extra-marital affair with her. She reportedly was desperate to terminate the affair but was blackmailed by Biswas to make public on social media intimate videos and online chats he had with her.

Things, according to police, took a bizarre turn on Monday evening when the victim reached her partner’s residence where an altercation between the two soon broke out. Biswas, allegedly, threatened to circulate private recordings and chat details in the public domain if she terminated the relationship. The woman reportedly poured kerosene and set herself on fire before running out to the streets, it was learnt.