(ISLAMABAD) — A woman in Pakistan was arrested for allegedly throwing acid on a man who refused to marry her, police said Friday, marking an unusual case in a country where rates of violence against women are high.
Local
police official Bashir Ahmed said the 32-year-old woman, Monil Mai, was
arrested Thursday, hours after she attacked her boyfriend Sadaqat Ali
when he went to her home in the Mukhdoom Rashid neighborhood of Multan, a
city in central Pakistan.
Ahmed
said that Mai had been having an affair with Ali for several years. She
wanted him to marry her so that she could divorce her husband, he said.
Ali was being treated at a hospital in Multan, in the eastern Punjab province, Ali said.
Acid
attacks and other so-called honor crimes against women are not unusual
in Pakistan, but women are rarely the perpetrators of such attacks.
“It
is a rare incident in which a woman has been accused of throwing acid
on a man,” said Zohra Yusuf, who heads the independent Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan. She urged the government to take steps to stop
the sale of acid to unauthorized persons.
“There
is a need to make checks on the availability of acid to common people
to prevent such future attacks against men or women,” Yusuf said. Acid
is easily available at markets in many parts of Pakistan, although the
government says it was tightening controls to stop illegal sale of
chemicals.