Lucknow: After going through the harrowing experience of a gang rape and five acid attacks, she is still surviving. Though, she says, she had lost the will to live.
Five days after she was forced to drink acid on train while returning to Lucknow from her home in Rae Bareli, the woman has suffered burns in the mouth, jaw and throat. Her speech is incoherent but her husband understands and conveys what she says.
Lying on a hospital bed, while the security guards stroll outside, the 46-year-old woman, says “I don’t want to live. I cannot take it anymore. Ab saha nahin jata. I want justice but have no hopes left.”
The woman belongs to the Pasi community (dalit) and her attackers are from the Thakur community.
She says that she was picked up and gang raped in 2008 because she refused to part with the land that the attackers wanted. “They were arrested and then let off. To teach me a lesson, they attacked me with acid in 2011, twice in 2012 and then again in 2013. My whole body has burn marks,” she says in between sobs.
The woman, who now works in Sheroes Hangout — a café run by acid attack survivors in Lucknow — had gone to her home in Rae Bareli to celebrate Holi, and was returning by train when she was attacked again.
“Guddu Singh and his brother Bhondu Singh were on the train and they caught hold of me when I was getting down at a Lucknow outer stoppage. Before I could realise, one of them caught my face and opened my mouth and the other poured acid. I lay screaming for help but the passengers walked away. When I regained consciousness, I was in hospital,” she says and her husband translates.
“I know I will not be able to live for long now. I want the government to give a job to my husband who sells vegetable for a living and also takes care of our two children,” she said, and added that she will no longer be able to move out to work.
Chief minister Adityanath Yogi visited her in hospital after the incident was reported in the media and promised financial assistance. He ordered security and free treatment for the victim.
The security personnel, meanwhile, were seen wandering outside the medical facility. When this correspondent went to meet the woman on Tuesday, there was no effort to stop or question a stranger entering the ward.
