Crime against women: Man given 2 life terms for acid attack on wife

Hussain had thrown acid on his wife for not bearing male children, Rs1.5m to be paid in compensation to victim.

MULTAN:

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Friday sentenced a man to serve life imprisonment twice and fined him Rs2 million for throwing acid on his wife for failing to bear male children. He was also ordered to pay Rs1.5 million in compensation to the victim.

The court decided the case in just two months.

Muhammad Hussain was convicted for throwing acid on his wife Naheed in February for giving birth to the couple’s third daughter. The acid had caused over 60 per cent burns on her body. She had undergone multiple surgeries in the Burn Unit at Nishtar Hospital in Multan.

Hussain had fled after the crime. The Vehari police said that he had kept changing his location as police conducted more than 50 raids to arrest him.

He was arrested a month after the acid attack and confessed to the crime. The case was referred to ATC No. 2 in Multan.

Besides the two life terms that the ATC judge decreed Hussain will serve, the convict was also sentenced to pay Rs2 million fine. Additionally, the judge ordered the convict to pay Rs1.5 million to the victim as compensation and expenses for surgery that the victim seeks abroad.

The judge stated in the verdict that if Hussain failed to pay the Rs2 million fine, he would have to face an additional five years imprisonment and a failure to pay the Rs1.5 million compensation would add a further 10 years to his prison term.

The Burewala Sadar police had lodged a case against Muhammad Hussain under the Anti-Terrorism Act on February 8 on a complaint by his mother-in-law Shamim Bibi.

Shamim Bibi told The Express Tribune that while she was devastated by her daughter’s pain, she was satisfied with the court’s decision. “I am also relieved that we did not have to suffer in courts for years.

I am thankful to the judiciary for deciding the case so quickly.”

She demanded that all cases involving women victims should be given priority and should be dealt with in the shortest time possible. “I consider that my daughter and I are the luckiest ones to get justice so soon because in the last three months we have seen no less than 400 women who have been fighting cases for their rights for four or five years in the courts of Multan.” She said that the three daughters of the victim were healthy and safe.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2014.