Pari's
laughter rang through the beauty parlor as she got ready for her
wedding. She was excited, scared, happy, and sad, all at the same
time. The dreams of her new future were coupled with an increasingly
stronger realization about how it would change her reality.
"Ma'am,
someone is here to see you." Pari was informed by an attendant.
"Who
is it?" she turned around, curious.
What
happened next was something nobody in their wildest dreams had
imagined. A seemingly well-to-do guy entered the scene, smiled at
Pari, and doused her with an immeasurable amount of toxic acid; all in
a quick succession.
The
parlor now rang with her shrieks and screams of others around her.
Nobody dared to catch the culprit; perhaps, they were frozen with
shock. She cried, and writhed in pain as the ambulance and police
were called.
* * *
* *
A
newsflash revealed that the cops had found a letter left behind by
the accused. According to the letter, Pari had been in a relation
with the him, and had broken up with him to marry someone else.
Heartbroken and infuriated, he had decided this deed would be the
best revenge.
This
revelation set tongues wagging.
"Children
these days have no values, no culture. Making boyfriends and
girlfriends and indulging in whatnot. Tsk-tsk. What is our dear
country coming to!"
"If
my daughter had done this, I would have poured acid on her myself.
And, then on that guy, too."
"She has brought shame to her family, and deserves this."
"Her
family members can't show their faces to anyone; now she can't,
either. Justice has been served."
Another news update a mere day later brought something
else to light.
The accused was not Pari's former boyfriend; rather, he was the accomplice of the ex-wife of the elder brother of Pari's husband-to-be. She had already made two attempts before to harm her ex-husband's family, but they had been foiled. By what logic she had targeted Pari was unfathomable.
Pari was shifted from the local hospital to a super-speciality hospital in a metro city. She was in extreme pain. Although she was stable, she was also critical. She had expressed her wish to talk to her fiance. He had, however, along with his family, shirked off all responsibility, and severed all ties with the her and her family.
She, now, was not only gravely physically hurt, but also emotionally wounded. She could not decide which suffereing was greater. She lost consciousness several days later, finally succumbing to the injuries after twenty days of the ordeal.
"We were ready for her bidaayi, but not of
this sort. We had been preparing for her wedding, and now we are
preparing for her funeral."
In loving memory of Harpreet, the acid-attack victim from Ludhiana, who passed away on 27 December, 2013. Rest in peace.
