A Desire to Disfigure: Acid Attack in India

Abstract

Girls are dying or disfigured everyday due to acid attacks. Girls have lost their lives while many are struggling with wounds who have survived from these vicious attacks by thwarted lovers by those seeking revenge against another family by jealous colleagues. This paper is an attempt to understand the reasons for the attacks and ways used for their disfigurement. News paper reports from January 2009 to December 2013 have been the source of the study. Thus the method of content analysis was adopted for this purpose. The findings reveal that total 58 cases have been reported during this period. Of these 65.49% cases were found under the age of 27 years. This problem has also been reported from rural area (15.51% cases). The result also shows that most of the girls were suffering from psychological trauma and expenses of reconstructive surgery. To put a stop to the growing number of acid attacks the Supreme Court clamped down on the sale of the toxic liquid and also ordered higher compensation to acid attack victims. Illegal sale and purchase of acid to be consider as non- bailable offence.