A newly married woman was burnt alive in a funeral pyre after doctors mistakenly thought she died from a lung infection, it has been claimed.

Rachna Sisodia, 24, was pronounced dead at Sharda hospital in Greater Noida, in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh on February 25.

A day later, her husband Devesh Chaudhary, 23, and some friends took her body and arranged a funeral pyre in Aligargh where they began to cremate her.

But the woman was dragged off the funeral pyre midway through the funeral as someone present in the service claimed she was still alive.

A postmortem report suggested she may have been alive at the time the fire started.

It detailed that there were charred particles in her windpipe and lungs suggesting she may have been breathing when she was being cremated.

Police spokesman Rajesh Pandey, who explained the doctors’ verdict, said: “This happens when someone is burnt alive. The particles go inside with the breath.

“If a person is dead, such particles cannot reach the lungs and the windpipe. So, the doctors concluded that the woman was burnt alive on the pyre.”

Rachna, who showed no signs of life, suffered 70 per cent burns by the time her body was pulled out.

Her family have accused her husband of organising the cremation while she was alive, Times of India reported.

Kailash Singh, Rachna’s uncle, claimed her husband Chaudhary of sexually assaulting and killing her after she went missing from her house in Bulandshahr on December 13 last year.

Cops have filed multiple cases against her husband and 11 others.

But doctors at the hospital who were treating Rachna have supported the husband and have stood by their diagnosis.

According to the death summary given by the hospital, Rachna passed away on February 25 at 11.45pm following “cardio-respiratory arrest and acute respiratory distress syndrome”.

Dr Pankaj Mishra, who conducted the postmortem, said that since the body was 70 per cent burnt he couldn’t say for sure if it was indeed Rachna’s.