KARACHI: A man threw acid on his cousin in Karachi’s Akhtar Colony on Friday allegedly after she refused to marry him, police said.
The suspect is currently on the run and police are making efforts to apprehend him. The victim is a 29-year-old divorcee and mother of two children. She was shifted to Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital’s burns ward.
According to initial reports, doctors said 40 per cent of her body had been burnt. The police said that a First Information Report (FIR) has been registered against Shehzad on behalf of the victim’s father.
The police further said that the suspect, Shehzad, had brought his parents to the woman’s house to present a proposal for marriage, which ended up with him attacking the woman with acid when she refused to accept his offer.
Striking with an easily acquired weapon such as acid causes irreversible damage with an effortless throw, as opposed to other readily available weapons like knives, which require forceful attacks with precision.
In June, a masked man threw acid at a young woman at her residence in Lahore after she refused to marry him. 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 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.
