A man was sentenced to death on Thursday by an Indian court for a deadly acid attack against a woman at a Mumbai railway station, the prosecutor said.
A special court delivered its verdict three years after Preeti Rathi, then 23, had acid thrown at her by a masked man at Mumbai’s Bandra railway station on May 2, 2013.
Rathi died a month later.
Parts of her lungs and throat were destroyed as she swallowed some of the acid thrown on her, the report says.
Ankur Panwar, 25, was arrested for the crime a year later.
The Police said told the court that Pawar had been Rathi’s neighbour in New Delhi and followed her to Mumbai when she went there for her first job as a nurse with the Indian Navy.
The Public prosecutor, Ujjwal Nikam said that Panwar had revealed he was jobless and jealous of Rathi’s success and was angry that she spurned his offer for marriage.
According to the Kolkata-based non-profit Acid Survivors Foundation of India, there are 100 to 500 acid attacks annually in India.
The victims are usually women.
The foundation said that the reasons for the attacks range from: revenge for spurned marriage proposals or sex; domestic disputes; dowry demands; and suspicions of infidelity.
"This sentence will put fear into all those who contemplate such actions.
I saw my child suffer so terribly," the victim’s father, Amar Rathi, told members of the media outside the court.
Panwar’s lawyer, meanwhile, said his client would appeal against the verdict at a higher court.
"If they appeal, we will fight it," Rathi said.
Join Daily Trust WhatsApp Community For Quick Access To News and Happenings Around You.
