Acid attack: Woman burnt for making divorce public

The man has been arrested. Doctors treating the woman said she was in critical condition.

Saima Bibi* told police that she had had a daughter two years after she married Muhammad Hussain, 37, a resident of Akhtar Town in Burewala Vehari. A few weeks later, she said, he divorced her and kicked her out of his house. She said she had been living with her parents for six months. However, she said, he had threatened her not to tell her family that he had divorced her. She said he had also threatened to kill the girl.

She said she told her parents that she had had an argument over the birth of a girl and did not want to go back.

A few weeks ago, she said, Hussain visited her and asked her to go with him. She said her family, too, pushed her for reconciliation, not knowing that she had been divorced.

She said she finally refused him and told her family that he had divorced her and that she could not return to his house. On Monday, she said, Hussain entered her parents’ house along with two men and beat her. He then threw acid at her and kept shouting that it was “a punishment for her arrogance”. She said he also cursed her for making the divorce public and refusing to return to him.

She was taken to Burewala tehsil headquarters hospital, where doctors said that she had 50 per cent burns. From there, she was shifted to Vehari district headquarters hospital, where she was said to be in critical condition.

Eye specialist Ghulam Hussain Atif at the DHQ Hospital told The Express Tribune that doctors were trying their best to save her eyes. He said he feared she might lose her eyesight.

An FIR has been registered on her father’s complaint. District Police Officer Sadiq Ali Dogar said the suspect was arrested on his way to Lahore. He said the two other suspects nominated in the FIR were yet to be arrested.

*THE NAME HAS BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT VICTIM’S IDENTITY

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2014.