SIALKOT: Police claimed to have arrested a suspect for throwing acid on a young girl and three members of her family for rejecting his marriage proposal at village Ismail Awan-Motra-Ghuenki of tehsil Daska two days back.

Shahbaz Hussain along with his two other companions, including Mudassar Waris, had thrown acid on face, neck and chest of Aysha Tayyab and her three family members after breaking into her house. Aysha was asleep along with her family in the courtyard of her house at night when the suspects entered the house with the bottles of acid by climbing the boundary walls.

They threw acid on Aysha and she received serious burns on her face, neck and chest. She is in critical condition in a Lahore hospital. During the attack, Aysha’s sister-in-law Saima, three-year-old niece Maya and one-and-a-half-year old Esha were also allegedly injured.

Suspect had attacked girl over marriage proposal rejection

Aysha’s father Muhammad Tayyab, a labourer by profession, told Dawn by telephone that Shahbaz’s marriage proposal was rejected by his family over his bad character. He said his daughter had lost one eye while the second eye was also affected.

Tayyab accused the Motra police of changing the text of the first information report (FIR). He said acid also fell on various body parts of his daughter-in-law Saima, wife of Abdul Raqeeb, his granddaughters Maya and Esha as they were also asleep near Aysha during the attack. He said the family had also mentioned the injured in the application for registration of the case but Motra police changed its text and mentioned only Aysha as the victim of the acid attack.

When contacted, the Motra police officials denied commenting on the allegation of changing the contents of the FIR.

The victim’s family has urged Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar, Regional Police Officer Tariq Abbas Qureshi and District Police Officer retired Captain Mustansar Feroz to ensure justice for them.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2020