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The hydra raises heads again

Acid violence increasing

Mahbuba Zannat
Nasima wishes she never dared stand up to the thugs who raped her daughter, a mentally challenged preteen. The defiance cost her deafly: they burnt her with acid.
The 35-year-old mother filed a case against the rapists two years back. Ever since they kept piling pressure on her to lift it. She resisted up until the first day of this month when they avenged her persistence.
Nasima's entire torso is ridged with acid bums, from neck to chest, abdomen and back. This time she does not dare seek justice.
"Aziz and his associates, who raped my 11-year-old daughter, threw acid on me because 1 did not agree to withdraw the rape case on their orders," she said on her bed at the Bum and Plastic Surgery Unit of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH).
"What is more brutal for a mother than to receive acid burns instead of justice?" asked Dr Samantalal Sen, project director of the burns unit.
The incidence of acid violence went down after the enactment of the Acid Crime Control Act and Acid Control Act of 2002. But the situation began worsening in the past two years.
According to an Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) report, there were 116 acid-throwing cases from January through August in 2007. The number stood at 125 in the corresponding period this year.
The DMCH bums unit sources said they had eight patients with acid burns in June-September last year. Past four months' 35 cases dwarf that number. And then, 13 patients were admitted to the ward this month till September 19.
The bums unit never got this many patients in such a short span.
Most of the current patients at the burns unit are victims of social violence stemming from disputes over property, failure to pay dowry or refusal of love or marriage proposals.
"The main reason for the increase is availability of acid," said Dr Sen. People are required to show medical prescriptions to buy narcotic like pethidine, but there is no such thing when it comes to buying acids, adding to their criminal use, headded.
According to the police headquarters, 1,428 cases were filed with acid crime control tribunals from 2002 to 2007. 1\vo hundred and fifty-four accused have so far been convicted in only 190 of the cases.
Of them, 11 were sentenced to death and 89 got life sentences. Three hundred and twenty-nine accused were acquitted on all charges.
But no government or NGO
officials could say how many of the death sentences were carried out or how many of the other convicts are doing their time in jail.
"We're don't know how many of the criminals are being punished. The cases were filed with different courts: we don't have any nationwide figures," Humayun Kabir, additional inspector general (crime 3) of police, told The Daily Star.
Advocate Salma Ali of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association (BNWLA) said, "The poor rate of convictions gets in the way of keeping individuals from committing the heinous crime."
As the criminals are often influential people, they pile pressure on the victims' families to withdraw cases.
At the same time, police cannot gather evidence properly as relatives get busy with treating the victims and make delay in filing cases, destroying vital evidence, experts said.
36-year-old Parul's husband threw acid on her eight years ago.
Acid burnt her entire face, throat and neck and her ears simply melted. She underwent several plastic and reconstructive surgeries at the DMCH.
Her mother filed a case one and a half months later. "My mother was busy with my treatment," she said.
The almost blind Parul now lives from begging while her husband Abul remains at large.
"I've been suffering for life without committing any crime. But the man who did this to me got scot-free," she said.
The government has got to enforce the law strictly and ensure a tough monitoring system to stop misuse of acids, the experts said adding that the law must not provide for bail.
Campaign against acid violence needs to be strengthened at the same time, they said.