‘Life after an acid attack is like a death every day’

Earlier this year,the Supreme Court said the minimum compensation for an acid attack should be Rs 3 lakh,and that governments should bear the cost of treatment — interim directions until uniform guidelines are framed. The Moga family,which has received the compensation for the woman and her father,has been bearing the cost of the treatment. Harpreet’s family,too,had borne the cost of her treatment, though the Punjab government announced Rs 5 lakh after her death,besides Rs 3 lakh compensation for the acid attack and a job for her brother.

Harpreet had been at a beauty parlour on December 7,putting on bridal makeup,when a group of men allegedly led by one Parwinder Singh flung acid on her. They had allegedly been sent by Amitpal Kaur,a woman the groom’s brother had married and divorced,and the attack was apparently Amitpal’s revenge on her former husband’s family. Harpreet died in Mumbai on December 27.

Of the other victims,the two surviving women no longer step out of home except for treatment,while the engineer,now retired,tries to bring treatment to other blind people.

Mandeep Kaur

Mandeep Kaur is a nursing graduate who in July lost an eye to an acid attack,allegedly by her husband from whom she was seeking a divorce. She has undergone 10 reconstructive surgeries over the last six months with 15 more to follow,she says,sitting in her room in Dayakalan village,Moga,dark glasses constantly covering her eyes,a muffler wrapped around her face.

Mandeep and her father,Shamsher Singh,who too suffered injuries in the attack,have been compensated with Rs 3 lakh each by the Punjab government but the father says they have already spent more than Rs 25 lakh up to this stage of her treatment. Mandeep has facial and hand burns,and her father minor facial burns.

“Her husband was torturing her,” says the father. “She came home within two years of the marriage.” On July 11,father and daughter were riding a two-wheeler to court for divorce proceedings when the attack happened.

“He and three friends were following me on motorcycles,” says Mandeep. “They were carrying acid in a mug and threw some of it at me. I covered my face with my right hand and it got burnt. Drops had fallen on my dupatta,so I cast it off,and they flung the rest of the acid on us.”

Mandeep is getting her reconstructive surgeries done by a Jalandhar-based surgeon. “Doctors say the treatment will continue for two more years,” she says. “I have stopped planning about my life now; I am living day to day and hoping he will be hanged.”

Her husband and his friends have been arrested,and she is fighting separate cases of divorce and attempt to murder. The accused in Harpreet’s case have been charged with murder,while two men have been convicted of the attack on the junior engineer and sentenced to seven years in jail.

Rajwinder Kaur

Rajwinder Kaur,20,is a daily wager’s daughter,working in a factory until April 2007 when she was attacked after she had complained about misbehaviour by a colleague. Balkar Singh Bunty,now under trial,allegedly threw acid on her the day after he lost his job on account of her complaint.

The attack claimed the life of one of Rajwinder’s friends,Sandeep Kaur,while Rajwinder lost vision in one eye and has barely seven per cent vision left in the other.

“Life after an acid attack is like a death every day,” says Balwinder Kaur,Rajwinder’s mother. Burns all over her face and arms,Rajwinder refuses to go out of her home on Tibba Road in Ludhiana,and keeps her face covered in a dupatta most of the time.

Sandeep Kaur suffered three months before she died. Says her mother,Parkash Kaur,“Looking at her suffering,I married off my younger daughters early.”

Rajwinder’s treatment is being carried out with voluntary donations to an account opened in Christian Medical College and Hospital. Doctors have told her parents there is no hope of her vision improving.

“When there is a hearing,we lose that day’s work,” says Joginder Singh,Rajwinder’s father. “And there are travel expenses too.”

Lal Chand

Lal Chand,now retired as junior engineer with Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd,was on duty in 2007 when he became the victim of an acid attack in Panj Garian village,Kotakpura. Two men have been convicted,with the motive said to be revenge after Lal Chand had lodged power theft cases.

Blinded by the attack,scarred for life on the head and shoulders though his face has been reconstructed to an extent,and forced to retire in 2008,three years ahead of schedule,Lal Chand today organises eye checkup camps with a few other friends once a year and even gets free cataract and glaucoma operations done with voluntary donations .

“If I am not able to see now,I make an effort to make life easy for others,” he says. “With the money that remains unspent after the eye camps,we buy and distribute notebooks among students of government schools.”

He was to get Rs 4 lakh compensation from the two convicted, Ashok Kumar and Veer Singh,but they told the sessions court that sentenced them that they couldn’t afford it. “Two influential persons were involved but never arrested,” alleges Lal Chand. He is upset with the power corporation,too,for not meeting his demand to give his son a job.

He now spends most of his time at his elder son Rajinder Kumar’s shop. “Rajinder brings me here and takes me home everyday. In the evening,my friends meet me here,” he describes his day when not organising an eye camp.