Acid attack: Man burns wife’s face ‘to make her stay home’

Victim says suspected wanted to put their eldest son to work to make up for the income lost by her resignation.

MULTAN:

A woman in Multan was hospitalised on Monday with burns she suffered in an acid attack allegedly by her husband to stop her from continuing a job.  

Doctors who treated the victim at Nishter Hospital said 60 per cent of her face was damaged. They said she also had suffered burns to her neck and arms. Deputy medical superintendent Noor Jauta told The Tribune that surgery would be required to fix the woman’s wounds. He said the reports of a medical examination to be carried out on Monday night would determine the kind of operation. The DMS described the victim’s condition as ‘out of danger’.

Talking to The Tribune at the hospital, the victim said the attack on Sunday night had followed an argument over her job at an advertising agency. “He wanted me to quit the job and stay home. He said he would send our son to work to ensure that the family income was not affected,” she said. She said she wanted everyone of her four children, all under eight years old, to finish their schooling before they started working.

The victim said the suspect had accused her of continuing the job so that she could maintain ‘relationships’ with other men. “I had taken up the job to help him feed the family. His income as a personal assistant to a lawyer was not enough to run a family of six people,” she said.

She said the suspect fled the scene following the attack.

Gulgasht police have registered an FIR against Muneer Ahmed*, husband of the victim, under Section 324 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

SHO Amir Khan said the complaint filed by the victims’ sister did not require the inclusion of Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (needed to be added in acid attack cases in accordance with a recent legislation making the offence non-bailable) in the FIR. He said the police might reconsider the decision about the section as the case progressed.

The complainant told The Tribune that she had rushed to her sister’s house on receiving a phone call from the suspect at around 3am on Monday. “He said someone had attacked one of their children with acid and asked me to go to his house to help her take the child to hospital,” she said. The suspect told her that he was away from home and could not return anytime soon, she added. The complainant said on reaching the scene she found out that her sister had been attacked with acid.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the victim

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2012.