Acid attack on family in dispute over marriage

A FAMILY of five had acid thrown over them after the parents spurned a suitor for their oldest daughter.

The father was beaten, and then had acid poured over him by unknown gunmen who then threw acid at his wife and three children.

Oldest daughter Mumtaz, 18, had been pursued by a local man whom the parents described as a gunman and troublemaker. She turned him down and became engaged to a relative instead.

However, a few weeks later, six or seven armed men burst into their home in the Bulk Awal area of northern Kunduz city in the middle of the night.

“First they beat her father and then they attacked with acid,” said Mumtaz’s mother, who asked not to be identified.

All five are now receiving medical treatment, said Abdul Shokor Rahimi, head of the Kunduz regional hospital.

“The father and oldest daughter are in critical condition as they have been injured all over the body,” Dr Rahimi said yesterday. “Their mother and two daughters, who are 14 and 13, have some wounds only in hands and faces.”

Ghulam Mohammad Farhad, the senior police detective for Kunduz, promised to track down the attackers “We have started an investigation and those who have attacked them will be prosecuted,” he said.

Acid is a habitual weapon in conservative, Taleban influenced areas of Afghanistan in the south and east, usually in disputes over betrothal or perceived breaches of fundamentalist ideology. On occasion, girls attending school have had acid thrown at them.

With foreign troops set to return home by the end of 2014, some fear women’s rights may be sacrificed in the scramble to ensure the West leaves behind a relatively stable state.