LAHORE: A masked man threw acid at a young woman at her residence in Lahore after she refused to marry him, police said on Monday.
According to the first information report (FIR) of the incident, registered on the victim’s complaint, the woman was attacked by the suspect in Johar Town.
The FIR was registered against a man who had allegedly previously threatened her under Section 336-B (harm by use of corrosive substance) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The woman, who is a domestic worker, said she was walking to a house where she worked around 8 am when she saw the suspect and an unidentified man waiting on a motorcycle near Jagawar Chowk.
The suspect offered to drop the woman off at her employer’s residence and when she refused to accompany him, the man threw acid kept in a steel jug on her face. As a result, the woman’s face, neck and hands were severely burned, the FIR said.
The woman in her statement said the suspect had wanted to forcefully marry her and when she refused, he threatened to not leave her capable of anything. In this connection, she said the man had thrown acid on her with the intention to kill her.
There were 9,340 victims of acid attacks in Pakistan between 1994 and 2018, according to a report by Punjab police.
According to a World Health Organisation report, acid violence against women in Pakistan is rising at a shocking rate, especially in the southern part of Punjab and Sindh.
World Health Organisation said 450 gender-based acid violence incidents take place in the country every year and a majority of the cases remain untraced.
