Narrating the disturbing ordeal, the couple’s family said Rashmi was raped by the two men in front of her husband and three kids in her house in a village of Basti district in Uttar Pradesh.

Basti/Gorakhpur: In a horrifying incident, a couple died by alleged suicide, hours after the wife was gang-raped by two men in a village of in Uttar Pradesh’s Basti district. According to the police, the victims, Naval Kishore (30) and his wife, 27-year-old Rashmi, consumed poison during wee hours on Thursday after the latter was gang-raped by the accused, Adarsh (25) and Triloki (45), both of whom have been arrested.

However, local media reports, citing locals and sources within the police, claimed that the accused men force-fed poison to the couple after sexually violating the wife.

While the husband, Naval, died the same day, the wife succumbed at a hospital in Gorakhpur on Friday, Basti SP Gopal Krishna said on Saturday.

The senior official said an FIR has been filed against the two accused and further investigation has been initiated.

The deceased couple’s relatives have alleged that the wife was gang raped by the two men in her house in the Rudhauli police station area on the intervening night of September 20 and 21, the SP said. Narrating the disturbing ordeal, the couple’s family said Rashmi was raped by the two men in front of her husband and three kids in her house in Madhya Nagar area of Shastri Nagar ward in Nagar Panchayat Rudhauli of Basti district in Uttar Pradesh.

Before allegedly committing suicide, the couple recorded a video in which they mentioned names of the accused, the police said.

Based on a complaint by the brother of the deceased man, an FIR was filed against the two men on Friday under Sections 376 D (gang rape ) and 306 (abetment to suicide), the SP said.

The deceased’s children told the police that when they were getting ready to go to school on Friday morning, their parents told them that they had consumed poison and were going to die, the police said.

The couple has three children, two sons aged eight and six-year-old and a one-year-old daughter, they said.

According to preliminary investigation, the rape incident is linked with the sale of land owned by the deceased, they added.

(With PTI inputs)