The slave –girl was set free and paid compensation if:

The correct answer is A. Early Indian legal texts such as Kautilya's Arthashastra and the Narada Smriti treat sexual misuse of a female slave by her master as a ground for her emancipation. In such cases she was to be freed, and the master was made to compensate her, which reflects the moral and legal concern for her dependent position.

• B is wrong. Cruelty by a master was a matter of wrongdoing, but the texts do not make a beating the condition for automatic manumission with compensation.
• C is wrong. Public objection to someone's enslavement was not a legal basis for freeing her. Freedom depended on specified circumstances, not on opinion.
• D is wrong. Caste status did not secure a slave's release. Dharmashastra rules on slavery treated lower-status groups as more exposed to bondage, not higher-caste persons as freed by birth.

The core concept is the status of slaves (dasa) in ancient Indian law, where manumission was tied to specific legal conditions. This links to the Mains theme of how dharmashastra and arthashastra handled social hierarchy, gender and bondage, and how far texts offered protection to the dependent.

Trap: aspirants often pick the option that describes cruelty (B) because it sounds like the strongest moral ground. The texts name sexual misuse specifically, so read the wording of the source rather than judging by modern intuition.