[b]Forced to drink acid by her former boyfriend in south Delhi’s Sangam Vihar on Wednesday morning, a 19-year-old woman was left hospitalised with a burnt throat and face.
Having received around 20 per cent burns, the woman, Muskan (name changed), is undergoing treatment in the emergency ward of AIIMS. She is expected to survive even as the doctors are yet to find out the extent of damage to her internal organs.
The man made her drink acid near her house. Her parents said no one in the neighbourhood came to her rescue.
The alleged attacker, 22-year-old Ravi Kumar, managed to escape from the spot after the crime, but surrendered at Sangam Vihar police station, said Romil Baaniya, DCP (South-East).
Kumar told the police that he was angry as he suspected Muskan to be in a relationship with someone else. He also feared that her family was set to engage her to someone else.
The woman, the sole bread earner of her family, works at a footwear manufacturing unit in Sangam Vihar. She lives with her mother and two siblings. Ravi lives two lanes away and works as a tailor.
“Ravi and my daughter were in a relationship for almost two years. I had agreed to their marriage but Ravi’s parents were against it because of difference in our castes,” said Muskan’s mother.
When Muskan realised that the marriage was nearly impossible, she severed the relationship around last Diwali. But Ravi could not get over it and kept visiting her.
“To keep Ravi away, my daughter recently lied to him that she had entered in a relationship with someone else. After that, Ravi would object to my daughter speaking to anyone over the phone,” the mother alleged.
For the last one week, Ravi had allegedly been confronting Muskan in the street close to her home when she would walk to her workplace.
Around 10.15pm on Wednesday, he again confronted Muskan about her telephonic conversations, but this time he was armed with a bottle of “diluted acid”.
“When she warned him to keep away, Ravi opened the acid bottle and without any warning tried to force the liquid down my daughter’s throat. Some of it went down to her stomach while the rest covered her face,” alleged the mother.
“No one tried to help my daughter. She managed to return home and collapsed in my lap. She tried to use signs to tell me that the acid had entered her stomach,” said the mother who too received minor burns to her hands because of the acid on her daughter’s body.
Police were informed and the woman rushed to AIIMS. Even as a police team was searching for Ravi, he visited the Sangam Vihar police station and confessed to his crime.
“He has told he could not bear to see the victim speak to anyone else or get married elsewhere. He wanted to leave her in a situation where no one would marry her,” said an investigator[/b]
