Acid attacks in India on the rise

Victims remain skeptical of the govt’s commitment to end acid violence, punish perpetrators.

Anu Mukherjee, an acid attack survivor, speaks with ucanews.com in Delhi

New Delhi:  Rukaiyya Jan thought her life was set. She had graduated with a college bachelor’s degree and was engaged to be married. But a splash of corrosive acid changed her life forever.

One morning in January 2013, Jan set off for her job tutoring children when she saw a man from her past. She had once refused to marry him. On this morning, he was out to get revenge.

“He stopped me in the middle of the street,” Jan recalled in a recent interview.

“Since it was a winter morning, there was not much movement outside. Taking advantage of the situation, he poured acid on my face and before I could realize anything, my face was burning and I was crying for help.”

Though passers-by rushed to her side, pouring water over her face, the acid had already done its damage. She would lose vision in one eye; one side of her face was scarred beyond recognition. The unseen damage the attack left was also lasting.

“For almost a year, I locked myself inside a room,” she said. “I was scared of meeting people and the way they looked at me.”

Jan’s story is familiar to hundreds of people across India who have been the victims of acid attacks. The scars last a lifetime: disfigured faces, vision-loss and ongoing medical treatment become a nightmare they must endure.

Acid attacks have been reported globally, but they are particularly prominent in South Asian countries. But while neighboring Bangladesh has seen a decline in reported attacks — 56 last year, compared with a peak of 494 in 2002, according to the Dhaka-based Acid Survivors Foundation — the trend is the opposite in India.

‘They want to destroy her completely’

According to statistics from the federal Ministry of Home Affairs, 2014 saw a sharp rise in the number of acid attacks in India. At least 309 people were attacked with acid last year, according to an affidavit the ministry recently filed to the country’s Supreme Court. By comparison, the previous three years saw between 66 and 85 cases reported.

Victims of acid violence can vary from country to country, but in India, it is often seen as a gender-based crime: it is women who are most often victims of such attacks. Jan’s own experience — attacked by a man whose marriage proposal she refused — is a case in point.

“They simply have the logic that if a girl can’t be theirs, she can’t be anybody else’s,” she said. “They want to destroy her completely.”

Advocates have long urged the Indian government to step in with legislation to address acid violence. In 2013, India passed amendments to its penal code, partly in response to a high-profile gang rape and murder. These included defining punishments for acid attacks, where convicted offenders can receive punishments of at least 10 years in prison, or up to a life sentence.

But advocates say the sentences are effectively far less severe, as offenders are often released early on parole, and are able to live out their lives as normal citizens while their victims continue to suffer.

“The feeling that they can commit the crime and get away with it is the main cause of the increasing number of such attacks happening across India,” said Pragya Singh, who runs the Bangalore-based Atijeevan Foundation, which helps acid attack survivors.

A key problem is that acid is also widely and easily available. In some Indian households, for example, acid is used to clean toilets. It can be purchased at the chemist or even in grocery stores for the equivalent of less than one US dollar. The Supreme Court in 2013 ordered all states to regulate the sale of acid, but Singh said that little has been done since then.

“Even after the apex court’s order, acid is still the easiest weapon available in the market to destroy a person’s life,” said Singh, herself a victim of acid violence.

This month, there has been a new government push to deal with the issue. On April 22, Home Minister Rajnath Singh stated in parliament that the government is developing software to help keep the sale of acid in check. He said that all states have formed rules to regulate the sale of acid, under monitoring from his ministry.

The Supreme Court this month also directed all private hospitals in the country to provide free medical treatment, including surgery, for acid attack victims.

However, some victims of acid violence remain skeptical about the government’s commitment.

“The court had ordered the regulation of the sale of acid two years back,” said Anu Mukherjee, who was attacked with acid in 2004, losing her eyesight. “When that has not been adhered to, how can we hope that this order will in any way help the victims?”

Mukherjee said her own surgeries have cost her a fortune after she was attacked by a jealous, female co-worker.

“It is me who is suffering day by day, thinking that the culprit is not even paying for what she has done to me,” she said.

Mukherjee has undergone 15 operations since the attack; her attacker was given a five-year prison sentence, but she was out on parole in half the time.

Mukherjee’s parents died when her younger brother was still a child, leaving her as the main provider in the family. Now, because of the acid attack, the roles are reversed.

“My brother was only 13 years old when the attack happened,” she said. “I used to take care of him and provide for his every need … Now he takes care of me.”

Source: UCAN