Mystery death of India Aids woman

An investigation by an Indian women's rights group into the death of a woman with HIV-Aids has concluded she was stoned after being turned out of her family home.

The National Commission for Women (NCW) said they had not been able to determine the exact cause of death, but there were suggestions that she was burned alive.

However, the government-run National Aids Control Authority, which also went to the woman's home village in Andhra Pradesh to investigate the case, said she had died of natural causes.

The commission has submitted its report to the state government, describing the case as one of shameful and criminal neglect.

An NCW spokesperson said the woman spent her last days bleeding profusely, lying on jute bags in the backyard of her home where she had been dumped by her family.

The NCW said they are not even certain that she had died when she was cremated.

Stigma

The death of the 32-year-old woman would probably have gone unnoticed had it not been for the NCW which sent a team to investigate how she died, says the BBC's Sanjay Dasgupta.

But even for a society where certain diseases still attract social stigma and death from neglect is not uncommon, the woman's death stands out as a singular incident, our correspondent says.

Health experts have expressed concern about the spread of Aids all across India.

Almost 450,000 women suffer from the disease in Andhra Pradesh alone.

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Revision date: 12 December 2007
Last revised by Amalia K. Gagarina, M.S., R.D.