A 22-year-old man was struggling for his life with 65% burns at a Lucknow hospital days after four people set him afire over a petty dispute in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda on Tuesday.

The four have been arrested while tension prevailed in Gonda as the victim and the assailants belong to different communities. A heavy police force has been deployed to avert any further trouble.

The victim, Vishnu Goswami, was initially undergoing treatment at Lucknow’s Shyama Prasad Mukherjee hospital. He was shifted to a private hospital in the city’s Gomti Nagar after Gonda lawmaker, Prateek Bhushan Singh, and some other people donated money for his better medical care.

The victim’s cousin, Raj Kumar Goswami, said Vishnu Goswami was set on fire as he along with brother had gone bring home their father, Ramgeer Goswami, who was drunk and loitering around in Mughaljot Chistipur village around 8.30 pm on Tuesday.

He said the four youths got into an argument with the two brothers when they were forcibly taking back their father home.

He said the four unnecessarily confronted Vishnu Goswami and set him ablaze after pouring petrol on him when he was washing his face after the argument.

He said the four took petrol from a tanker parked outside a roadside eatery on Gonda-Faizabad road.

Raj Kumar Goswami said the victim’s brother, Mahesh Goswami, and two other locals Pankaj Pandey and Raj Kumar Pandey rushed to rescue him after spotting him engulfed in flames but he was severely burnt. He was rushed to a local hospital from where he was shifted to Lucknow immediately.

Inspector of Kotwali Dehat, Rajnath Singh, said the police have registered an attempt to murder case and arrested the four accused identified as Imran, Ramzan, Nizamudeen and Tufail on Tuesday night.

First Published: May 18, 2019 23:52 IST