29 hurt in bizarre acid attack on Peshawar market

At least 29 people sustained acid burns in Peshawar during a protest on Thursday.

At least 29 people sustained acid burns in Peshawar on Thursday during a protest against the nine-day-long suspension of power to a market, police and traders said.

Among the injured were a woman named Mohsina, four children, police constable Gul Habib and 24 other people. Almost all of them were discharged following initial treatment at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH), Peshawar.

An official of the Khan Raziq police station said that acid was flung at protesters from the third floor of a nearby building. Though the motive of the acid attack is unclear, the police have arrested three persons Ishaq, Junaid and Zahid in connection with the incident.

According to witnesses, the incident took place in the Sona Tower market in Sarafa Bazaar at around 12:30 pm on Thursday. Some unidentified people poured a bottle of sulphuric acid over the traders who were protesting against the market’s owners for not installing a powerful enough electricity transformer for the market.

“There was chaos as protesters reacted [to the attack]. Some started crying, others pulled off their clothes and dashed for the nearby LRH,” a trader, Mohammad Shoaib, told The Express Tribune.

At the time of the attack, Shoaib said, all traders were in the market’s basement where  negotiations were going on between them and the owners. “The power of the market’s transformer is 100KV and it has been out of order for almost nine days. On Thursday, the owners came to meet the traders and told them to arrange funds to purchase a 200KV transformer. The traders refused and the owners drew out pistols. There was a verbal spat and all the traders closed their shutters in protest and gathered in the basement,” he said. Shoaib alleged that the owners were minting money from traders who were being forced to pay double the amount under the pretext of electricity bills.

Another trader, Naseem Gul, said that there were around 250 jewellery shops and workshops in the market, which is jointly owned by the president of the jewellers association Haji Israr and the former acting nazim of Peshawar, Haji Umar Khan.

“The transformer cannot bear the load and has developed faults thrice during the past few weeks. For over one week, we have not had electricity,” he said. In the meeting, Gul said, the owners asked traders to stop using air conditioners and also install a transformer of their choice, but at their own expense. “Ours was a peaceful protest and we had only wanted to push the owners to accept our demands,” he said.

Another trader Muhammad Ali said that sit was ironic that their demand was met and they got a more powerful transformer within two hours but at the cost of injuries to so many people.

Despite repeated attempts, Haji Israr could not be contacted. His staff insisted that he was out of the city and referred to his son Usman, who also refused to speak to The Express Tribune and said that he did not have enough information about the incident.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 9^th, 2010.