Srinagar- Nisar Ahmad Chiloo, the father of the Srinagar acid attack survivor, was grieving over his daughter’s permanent scars from the horrific attack, rather than being joyous about the rigorous punishment of life imprisonment handed to the prime accused for his act.
With tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks, Chiloo 60 was regretfully glancing at her partially crippled daughter, who was seated on one side of the room with her face hidden by a scarf.
“I am not unhappy with the court verdict, but how can a father whose young daughter was left bruised and defaced rejoice? The scars my daughter suffered at the hands of the accused may not heal, even though he faced the repercussions of his act,” Chiloo told Kashmir Observer.
She was quite beautiful and equally obedient to her parents, so her mother and I had always longed to see her in a wedding gown. Don’t know whether we could see her become a bride or not, he said.
Accompanied by a minor, the prime accused Sajid Altaf Rather, a resident of Srinagar, splashed acid on a then 24-years-old girl at Hawal area in the old city on February 1, 2022, after she turned down his marriage proposal.
Police arrested Rather, his juvenile aide and Mohammad Saleem Kumar, the man who sold the abrasive chemical to the main accused, a day after the attack.
After two years of rigorous trial, Principal Sessions judge, Srinagar, Jawad Ahmed convicted Rather under Sections 326 A (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by use of acid) and 34 (common intent) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and awarded him life imprisonment.
When he was at his very last, Chiloo said, he sold his family’s ancestral property to pay for his daughter’s medical expenses, but the suffering didn’t end there; he had to shell out a hefty sum for his daughter’s surgery.
“Nobody in this world could possibly be as unfortunate as me, I believe, since I am really an unlucky person. As a father, there was nothing I could do to help my daughter because her chances of getting her eyesight back are very less,” he added.
For my daughter’s medical care, I spent almost 80 lakh rupees till date, of which Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari paid 22 lakh all at once. I am really grateful to him for the favor.
Recalling the fateful day when he came across the shocking news, Chiloo said he was crestfallen to see her daughter lying on a hospital bed in an unconscious state.
“Her bandaged face gave me the impression that the end of the world was near, and when I first saw her face, I could not believe what I was seeing. Ya Allah reham, (Oh Allah have mercy),” he cried out.
I continued to fight a legal battle in addition to her treatment, despite being mocked and taunted. I refused to give up on my fight against injustice meted out to my daughter.
“Even though it often takes decades for a criminal case to come to a logical end, the courts and the police performed an amazing job in providing justice for my daughter,” he added.
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