Advertisement
Advertisement
Acid attack victims Rupa (left), 19, and Ritu, 18, stage a hunger strike in New Delhi demanding strict laws to deal with acid attacks earlier this month.Photo: Associated Press

India to adopt tough new measures against acid attacks after another victim is disfigured

Efforts come after doctor disfigured allegedly by men hired by jilted lover

The Indian government is considering tough new measures to stop acid attacks after another assault - this time leaving a female doctor disfigured and possibly blinded in one eye after the substance was flung on her on Christmas Eve by men allegedly hired by a jilted lover.

The Home Ministry is planning to make acid attacks heinous crimes, and a new web-based application will be used to regulate sales of acid only to authorised individuals.

The law will also be amended to speed up trials, and victims will receive free medical treatment.

Last year, thanks to lobbying by a 23-year-old acid attack survivor, the Supreme Court restricted the sale of acid. But little has changed. Acid can be bought from grocery stores for about 15 rupees (HK$1.8) a litre.

This easy availability resulted in Dr Ashok Yadav, who police said has confessed, paying two men to throw acid on the Christmas Eve victim because she planned to marry someone else. Police said he told them: "I wanted to teach her a lesson."

On December 11, a law student in Srinagar suffered an acid attack as she walked to college, leaving her with horrific injuries. A spurned suitor and his friend have been arrested.

This attack prompted a sit-in by acid attack survivors in the Indian capital for the past fortnight. Their organisation, Stop Acid Attacks, wants the sale of acid to be effectively curbed and acid attacks to be classified under Indian law as a heinous crime so that either a life sentence or the death penalty can be imposed.

"Much more needs to be done," said Alok Dixit, the founder of Stop Acid Attacks.

"First, the courts take too long to try these cases - years or a decade," he said. "Then the survivors have to beg and borrow money from relatives for the operations they need to repair their faces. The government gives them nothing."

According to National Crime Records Bureau figures, 217 acid attacks were recorded between 2010 and 2012. The survivors are often left with disfigured faces and bodies and mounting debts because of the number of operations that are needed to reconstruct their faces.

"Local politicians promised to help me with money for my operations. Despite many visits by me and my father (a security guard), but they never did. It was just words," said Sonali Mukherjee.

Mukherjee was 18 when a group of men poured acid on her face as she slept on the terrace in Dhanbad on a hot summer's day in 2003. The acid dissolved her face, leaving only the nose cartilage and teeth.

Flinging acid on a woman for rejecting their advances has become the favourite method of revenge for Indian men unable to accept the idea that a woman can have autonomy and make her own decisions.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Tough moves against acid attacks planned
Post