New Delhi: Two men on a motorbike threw acid at a 30-year-old woman doctor who was on her way to work on Tuesday morning. A doctor at AIIMS later said the victim, Amrita Kaur, sustained damage to the cornea of her right eye and chemical burns on the right side of her face. A case has been registered but the two assailants are still at large, police said.
Amrita was riding her scooter to work through a marketplace in Rajouri Garden when the two men rode by and threw acid at her face around 9.25 am. They sped off but the incident was caught on CCTV cameras in the street.
Police said the footage shows two men, one of them dressed in blue overalls, riding the bike. The other is dressed in a white shirt and is riding pillion. Amrita, dressed in red, is seen riding her scooter when the attackers catch up with her. The man in white turns around, flings an acidic liquid at her and snatches her handbag. Both the men’s faces are covered.
Amirta fell to the ground after the attack. She screamed for help for over 20 minutes, police said. But shops in the street were still closed and passers-by and cars did not stop to help her. Finally, builder Abhishek Jetly came to her help. He drove her to a local nursing home and then to Employee’s State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Hospital, where Amrita practices. She was later referred to AIIMS.
Jetly, 36, said, “The victim was screaming and begging for help for half an hour. But nobody came forward to help. In the three CCTV cameras installed outside my house, I saw people walking past. When my wife heard the screams, she informed me.”
“The right side of her face was disfigured, the skin had melted. Her right hand was also injured. I drove her to a local nursing home. She then gave me her brother’s number. I called him up and when he arrived, we decided to drive down to Rajouri Garden and then AIIMS,” he said.
He said he had spoken to Amrita’s family. The victim said she is not married and nor does she suspect anyone in particular to be behind the attack. But, Jetly said, Amrita’s family claimed that they could check the footage to see if the attackers were people they knew.
Police have formed five teams to trace the attackers and the Crime Branch has been roped in for investigation.
AIIMS doctors said Amrita was brought to the hospital around 2 pm. Hospital spokesman Dr Amit Gupta said she sustained grade-four injuries in the right cornea and chemical burns on the right side of her face. She will need plastic surgery.
Doctors said it will take 3-4 days to ascertain if the burns left any impact on her vision. “Decontamination using normal saline has been done. The left eye is normal. The patient has a lot of pain in the right eye. The right side of her face has chemical burns and plastic surgery will be required,” Dr Gupta said.
