A 55-year-old Christian woman with mental disabilities has been hacked to death outside her home in India.

Balwinder Kaur, from the Dalit caste, had been accused of desecrating the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the poetic work which forms the central scripture of the Sikh religion.

She was booked and bailed by police for the alleged desecration after she had entered the local Sikh temple in her village of Veroke in Moga, Punjab.

Kaur, who had two sons and a daughter, had suffered from mental disabilities after getting an electrical shock. 

Police said she was beaten with sharp instruments and died from loss of blood. Kaur crawled 40 feet to her granddaughter's room but it was too late to save her, the Times of India reports.

Police are investigating whether she could be a victim of radical Sikhs seeking revenge for sacrilege. 

India is currently at number 17 on the Open Doors world watch persecution list. Since May 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party was elected, radical Hinduism has increased and minorities including Christians are regularly persecuted.

Her husband Labh Singh said after desecration incident the family left to stay with relatives and returned home two months ago. He told Indian Express: "We would have taken precautions had we known there was a threat to her life. She worked as a labourer all her life. She even worked as a volunteer in the construction of the village gurdwara [Sikh temple]."

He added: "She suffered an electrocution around 20 years ago. Since then she has not been mentally fully fit. When she visited the gurdwara that day, it is clear she was not in control of herself."