A spurt in acid attacks against women has become a cause for concern in rural and urban West Bengal. BY Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay.
ON the afternoon of August 18, Raqibur Mandal of Nowda in Murshidabad district went to meet the girl he wanted to marry, carrying with him a bottle of acid. The girl, a student of class 12, had gone to the local panchayat office and was walk- ing back alone when he waylaid her. The two were seen having a heated argument, and Raqibur suddenly hurled acid on the girl’s face. He tried to escape on his motorbike but was caught by the local people. Like all acid attacks, it was a cold premeditated assault. He knew very well that she would reject him and had armed himself to avenge the insult to his ego.
The same day at Joynagar in South 24 Paraganas district, Uma Chakraborty, a housewife, was at- tacked with acid allegedly by her neighbour, Bapi Mistri, over a long- standing dispute over land. Uma Chakraborty, in the throes of agony, threw herself into a nearby lake before being rescued by other residents of the neighborhood.
Just 10 days before these attacks, Jyotsna Das Malik, a 35-year-old widow from Tarakeswar in Hooghly district, and 28-year-old Shikha Ghosh from Nadia succumbed to burn injuries after being attacked with acid. The attack on Jyotsna Das Malik was carried out on July 23, apparently for spurning the advances of one of her attackers. Shikha Ghosh, who was a deaf mute, was in her room on the night of August 6 when miscreants threw acid on her through the window. She died of burns two days later. According to her family, the attack was instigated by a neighbour who had allegedly raped Shikha earlier.
On August 3, yet another wom- an, this time a housewife from Bardhaman, was attacked with acid.
Between July 23 and August 18, West Bengal was witness to five acid attacks that resulted in two deaths. In the face of increasing incidence of violence on women in the State, the spurt in acid attacks over the last few years has become a cause for concern in Bengal’s rural and urban societies.
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