Acid attack

She left her house around 9am and boarded an auto from the Lajpat Nagar neighbourhood of Ghaziabad to go to work.

“There were two young women, an elderly couple and myself in the auto,” said Rahul Kumar, one of the passengers. “I was sitting alongside the driver. The victim was in the left of the rear passenger seat. Suddenly, two men came on a black bike and threw a plastic bag at her. It was filled with some blackishblue liquid.”

This was around 9.30am, barely 200 metres from the Mohan Nagar i ntersection. “Within seconds I could feel that my T-shirt had got burnt and the victim started screaming,” Kumar said.

The police said a First Information Report (FIR) under section 326a (throwing acid) had been lodged against the two unidentified men. The victim’s family, the police said, had named another young woman in the FIR; she is from Kondli in Delhi and was a colleague of the victim in her previous job in a Noida company.

The family alleged that their friendship had soured. The victim moved to a different job afterwards. The police quoted the victim’s family as saying the young woman and the victim had frequent altercations. made by the ministry are extending the right of appeal against a decision by the tribunal to the respondents. Earlier, only senior citizens could file an appeal against an order.

Commenting on the changes suggested by the ministry, Mathew Cherian, chief executive officer of the NGO Helpage India said the government should first ensure implementation of the law and help spread awareness of its provisions.

“It has been 10 years since the law was passed, but there are lacunae in implementation. Even the posters or advertisements put out for awareness do not clearly explain the provisions of the Act to senior citizens,” Cherian said.

In January, Helpage came out with a preliminary study conducted in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana and Kerala based on 115 petitions filed by senior citizens with maintenance tribunals to show that only 57% of the cases filed, including complaints of abuse of elderly, neglect, forceful possession of property, had been settled while 33% were still pending. The report said repeated visits to the tribunals set up for dealing with these cases was cited as a problem by 42% of the respondents. An equal proportion complained of delays in hearings on the appointed dates.