It was quite a regular day for Aarti Thakur as she, after a long day at her marketing job in an IT company went to Goregaon station to board a train back home to Nalasopara. The 23-year-old hardly paid attention to her surroundings as she navigated through the typical evening crowds in the Mumbai suburb. Little did she know that the day, January 31, 2012 would be an end to life as she knew it.
Talking on the phone while punching her coupon for the rail fare, she was approached by an unidentified man who threw acid on her face. Hours later she was lying in a hospital bed with burns on her eyebrows, face, neck and forearms. The assaulter, however, wasn’t difficult to trace. A case of a scorned lover yet again who had earlier hired someone to assault her, twice, with a small knife which left marks on her face.
While the attack left Aarti in a state of shock, her troubles just don’t seem to end. In an unfortunate battle with the state, Aarti seems to be losing out on the only financial hope she can rely on for her treatment. The state government had introduced a scheme in 2013 to help survivors of acid attacks and sexual assaults. However, Aarti, as per the officials, is “not eligible as it happened over a year before the scheme was launched.”
It is indeed an odd system that chooses to help victims based on the date, time and year of the assault rather than their actually need of it. But we find solace in the fact that the government is willing to pay Aarti Rs.3, 00,000 medical treatment through the Manodhairya Yojna scheme or the Chief Minister’s fund.
The amount of Rs.3,00,000 however seems a tad too meager for an acid attack victim. A look at any acid attack case recovery process shows that the expense is often triple of what the government offers.
Take the case of Shalu Jain, a 29-year-old insurance company saleswoman from Rajasthan. She was attacked by a stalker in 2009 and the surgery itself cost her family around 1.5 million rupees. Add to it hospital charges, doctor bills and medicines, and the numbers fast double. The fact that girls like Shalu and Aarti are the sole breadwinners of the family leads to a dire financial condition which makes the Rs.3,00,000 aid seem almost laughable.
The promptness of the scheme is also in question. While on paper the victim is to receive Rs.1,00,000 within 15 days of the attack, it takes a minimum of six months to get even that amount. While the victim is struggling with the physical hurt, the government makes it doubly difficult for the family who has to cope with caring for their loved ones and fighting money battles.
As per statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau, there have been 225 reported cases of acid attack victims on women from 2010 to 2012. Activists claim that there is a fairly high number of unreported cases nationwide.
Aarti struggles to fight this very limiting government aid on the grounds that while the attack happened in 2012, her treatment is still going on. She is fighting a battle for Rs.30 lakh to cover the cost of her medical bills and other expenses. We hope that her case can go down in history as one that amends the limiting aid that our government is willing to give acid attack victims.
Image courtesy: BCCL
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