Hunt continues for acid attack suspects in Lahore

Victim's former husband, a traffic head constable, has been taken in for questioning

LAHORE: The hunt is continuing for suspects involved in the horrifying incident in which an assistant professor fell victim to an acid attack in Chung, Lahore.

At the same time, police have taken Afzal Hussain, the former husband of the victim, in for interrogation. He is a head constable in the City Traffic Police.  The victim, Aneela, worked as an assistant professor of Arabic at a government degree college. On Friday, she was driving home with her children. All along the way, she observed that two motorcyclists were following her and staring, but she tried to ignore them.

As neared Jubilee Town, the motorcyclists told the victim that her car had some tyre issues. As she reduced speed and lowered her windows, the suspects told that the tyre issue could lead to an accident. The victim stopped the car and a suspect came down from the bike and pretended to fix the tyre nuts. Aneela was looking on when the other assailant, who was wearing a helmet and carrying a big bottle, also disembarked from the bike.



He uncapped the bottle and threw the liquid on the face of the victim. After attacking her, the helmeted man did not stop and went to the back of the vehicle where Aneela’s children were sitting. He also threw liquid on her son and moved around to the other side to pour a chemical substance on her daughter.  As the victims kept screaming in pain and fear, the suspects fled from the scene.

They managed to call a Police 15 team which reached the spot on information and shifted the victim to hospital. An FIR was registered against unidentified suspects on the complaint of Bashir Ahmad, the father of victim.

Bashir told The Express Tribune that his daughter and her children, fortunately, did not suffer fatal injuries. He added the children were safe and suffered minor injuries, but Aneela’s eye and face was affected. Doctors said that the eye would recover, while the children were lucky that the assailants threw chemicals on them instead of acid.

Bashir further stated that the FIR was registered against unidentified suspects as his daughter could not recognise any of the two people involved. However, after investigations, the police suspected that the victim’s former husband was involved.

The father said that Aneela’s former husband worked as a driver in the police department. He would keep on torturing her, while misbehaving and intimidating the family. “My daughter continued to bear the brunt, but he did not stop and even started bringing other women home,” he said. Aneela finally had enough and took a divorce before marrying another individual. He alleged that the former husband then started issuing threats of dire consequences.

Punjab Inspector General of Police Arif Nawaz took note of the incident and ordered CCPO Amin Wains to submit a report.

Some weeks ago, a woman was attacked with acid by her fiancé when she was returning from work at night in the Defence A area. The victim had suffered grave injuries to her face and her eyesight was also affected.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8^th, 2017.