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New Delhi: After finishing work at a call centre in Noida last May, Akasha Seth, 21, had just parked her car outside her local shopping centre when two men approached on a scooter. As she got out of the car, all that onlookers heard were her shrieks of pain.
The men had thrown acid on her and fled. Seth (not her real name) suffered burns to her neck, upper chest and hands but her face, fortunately, remained unscathed.
Many other victims of acid attacks - usually young women spurning the sexual advances of a besotted or jealous beau - are not so lucky.
The disfigurements are horrific. Some women never venture outdoors again to avoid seeing fascinated revulsion in people's eyes. The cost of protracted medical treatment is high.
Now India is planning to make the perpetrators of acid attacks pay for their victims' treatment.
"These women are mutilated for life. Many are from poor families who can't pay for cosmetic surgery or other treatment. The attackers should pay for the treatment and rehabilitation of their victims," said Renuka Chowdhary, Women and Child Development Minister.
Chowdhary supports a draft bill approved by the National Commission for Women that requires an assailant to hand over Rs500,000 (Dh37,973) to his victim within a month of the attack. The rest is paid later.
The bill also proposes increasing the jail sentence from the current maximum of seven years to a minimum of 10.
Seth has not worked since the attack. One of the assailants was a young man she had known at college. Having met again recently at a party, he asked her out repeatedly. She refused to see him.
"The police haven't been able to find him. He knows where I live and where I work. I'm sure he will try to hurt me again," said Seth.
Hearing a recent case where a young women had been blinded and disfigured so badly that she refused to uncover her face even with her own family, a Supreme Court judge remarked that an acid attack was "worse than murder".
The government seems to be trying to catch up with neighbouring Bangladesh where a spate of acid attacks has prompted draconian legislation, including the death penalty.
No official statistics are available, but women's groups and lawyers dealing with this crime estimate that around 100 women suffer acid attacks every year.
The Bangalore-based Campaign and Struggle Against Acid Attacks on Women recorded 65 cases in Karnataka state alone between 1999 and 2008.
One of its members is Haseena Hussain, who used to be an attractive, young software developer. When, in 1999, she decided both to reject his marriage proposal and leave his company, her boss extracted his revenge by pouring two litre of concentrated hydrochloric acid over her body. She was 19 at the time.
Lost her eyesight
Hussain lost her eyesight and is still badly disfigured despite 18 operations. The judge sentenced her boss to five years in jail.
"Five years is a joke. We need harsher sentences and stricter laws against the sale of acid. It is madness to be able to buy something so lethal over the counter," said Sanjana, another member of the Campaign who prefers to be known by her first name.
For a few rupees, Indians routinely buy acid rather than bleach to clean drains and bathrooms.
Chowdhary is also concerned at the lack of employment opportunities for acid attack victims. Even if they are courageous enough to venture out and face the public, few employers are willing to hire them. They fear it will be too disturbing for their other workers.
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