Unidentified assailants threw acid on a 35-year-old complainant in a gangrape case in Lucknow’s Aliganj area on Saturday evening, the fourth violent attack on her since she reported the assault nine years ago, reported NDTV. The attackers approached the woman as she stepped out of her hostel to fill water from a nearby hand-pump in the area.
The incident took place sometime between 8 pm and 9 pm, despite the fact that she had been given round-the-clock police protection and an armed guard was inside the hostel at the time.
The police said the woman had suffered multiple injuries on her face after the latest attack. “She was outside her hostel when someone came and threw acid on her,” said Abhay Kumar Prasad, the additional director general of police in Lucknow. “There are injuries to the right side of her face. The woman is in trauma. We will take strict action.”
The woman works in a cafe in Lucknow run by survivors of acid attacks.
Earlier in March, the woman was forced to drink acid while she was returning to Lucknow from her village in Rae Bareli. The two accused named by the woman were later arrested. UP Chief Minister Adityanath had visited her after the incident took place.
On the latest acid attack on the woman, Adityanath said it “needs to be seen if an attack actually happened”. “Investigations are on. I think by evening we will know if the attack happened or not,” he told a private news channel in Varanasi, according to Hindustan Times.
The woman has been attacked multiple times with acid in the last eight years since a gang of men raped her as part of a property dispute over her home in the Raebareli district. The trial in the case has not yet begun. Her family claims she has been threatened by the accused repeatedly since she filed the complaint.
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