Patna: A woman teacher on Tuesday knifed to death Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Raj Kishore Kesri at his home in Bihar's Purnia town, alleging he had raped her for over three years.
As other visitors at Kesri's home watched in horror, Rupam Pathak suddenly whipped out a hidden knife and attacked the 51-year-old politician, police and witnesses said.
Police officer P.K. Thakur said the attack proved fatal as the knife damaged the spleen.
A relative of the dead politician said he saw Kesri fall from his chair but initially thought he had simply slipped.
"I wondered why he was not getting up," S. Kumar told reporters at the site. "It is only when I went to pick him up that I realised that he was bleeding profusely."
Even as Kesri's stunned guards overpowered the woman, the BJP leader was rushed to a hospital where doctors pronounced him dead after trying to revive him.
Some accounts said the woman was thrashed by a mob at the site. Officer Thakur denied this, but journalists saw her crying, apparently in pain, in a police van.
A police officer told IANS over the telephone from Purnia that the school teacher had last year accused Kesri of raping her and lodged a criminal case against him.
But Thakur said the woman had subsequently withdrawn the rape charge.
"The accused has been arrested and is being interrogated," another officer said.
The news of the killing spread rapidly across Bihar, where the BJP is the junior ally of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United (JD-U).
Nitish Kumar expressed shock over the incident and ordered a probe. He asked Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi of the BJP to rush to Purnia.
Pathak had earlier alleged that Kesri and his men had raped her for a period of three years.
BJP leaders rubbished the allegation and called Pathak a blackmailer.