Acid attack on 17-year-old Salma Khatun and her mother

The International Secretariat of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has received information and requests your URGENT intervention in the following situation in Bangladesh.

Brief description of the situation:

The International Secretariat of OMCT has received information from Odhikar, a member of the SOS-Torture Network, regarding the case of Ms. Rasheda Khatun, a 40 year-old widow and her daughter Ms. Salma Khatun, 17 years old, in Ullapara Upazial, Sirajgong district.

According to the information received, on the night of 4 December 2007, while Ms. Khatun and her daughter were sleeping, Mr. Akter Hossain and Atiqul threw acid on them through the window. The two victims were severely burnt. Allegedly, the reason of the crime was to take revenge on Ms. Khatun who had previously filed a complaint against them seven months earlier.

Atiqul and Salma used to have a love affair and were once caught having intimate relations. After that influential villagers convened to settle the issue between the two families, ordering that Atiqul pays a fine of 50,000 Taka to the victim’s family and marries Salma. Atiqul’s brother-in-law Akter Hossain later convinced him neither to pay the compensation nor to get married. Following that Salma and her mother filed a complaint against Atiqul and Akter Hossain, which then motivated the acid attack.

After this attack, influential people from their community tried to prevent the victims from filing a complaint. Despite that, the victims managed to file a report on 8 December 2007 under section 5 (kha) of the Acid Crime Control Act 2002, but the officer-in-charge of Ullapara Thana, Syed Shahid Alam, and Sub-inspector Rejaul Islam found it to be a fabricated case. Also, at the Sirajgong Sadar Hospital, the victims were denied medical care. The doctor requested that they provide a large amount of cash, which led them to sell their house, and gave them a treatment for no more than a day. They have eventually been taken care of at the Sirajganj General Hospital from 6 to 30 January 2008.

After information about their case was issued thanks to a joint action of Odhikar and some newspapers, an officer-in-charge was instructed to investigate the case which is to be tried by the District and Session Judge’s court in Sirajgong. However Akter Hossain and Atiqul still have not been arrested. Meanwhile the victims have been threatened by the aggressors but they have not reported this fact to the police due to fear of further reprisals.

OMCT is concerned by the gravity and frequency of acid attacks that plague Bangladesh[1], bearing a strong gender component, and hopes the State will improve measures to fight against them and make sure perpetrators are accordingly punished. OMCT is also concerned by the lack of action of State authorities, police and doctors, especially concerning the inadequacy of medical facilities for victims of such abuses and the difficulty the victims faced in receiving medical care.

OMCT also recalls that the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women states in its article 4(c) that all States must "exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and, in accordance with national legislation, punish acts of violence against women, whether those acts are perpetrated by the State or by private persons."

Action requested:

Please write to the authorities in Bangladesh urging them to:

1. Take all necessary measures to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Rasheda Khatun and her 17 year old daughter Ms. Salma Khatun;
2. Ensure a thorough and impartial investigation into this case of acid violence in order to bring the responsible to trial and apply the penal and/or administrative sanctions as provided by law;
3. Guarantee that adequate rehabilitation, including psychological and medical treatment as needed, and compensation is awarded to the victims;
4. Guarantee the respect of human rights and the fundamental freedoms throughout the country in accordance with national laws and international human rights standards.

Addresses:

• Mr. A. F. Hassan Ariff, Law Advisor, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Fax: +880 2 7168557
• Mr. Kazi Habibul Awal, Secretary, Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Email: info@minlaw.gov.bd, Fax: +880 2 7171536
• Major General (retd.) M. A. Matin, Home Advisor, Ministry of Home Affairs, Bangladesh Secretariat, Building 4, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Email: mediacell@homemin-bd.org
• Mr. Abdul Karim, Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Bangladesh Secretariat, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Fax no. of IGP - +880 2 9563362, 9563363
• Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed, Chief Advisor of the Caretaker Government, Office of the Chief Advisor, Tejgaon, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Fax : +880 2 8113243 / 3244 / 1015 / 1490, Email: Info@pmo.gov.bd
• Mr. Mohammad Ruhul Amin, Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Bangladesh, Supreme Court Building, Ranna, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh, Fax +880 2 9565058
• Barrister Fida M Kamal, Attorney General of Bangladesh, Office of the Attorney General Supreme Court Building, Ramna, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh. Fax: +880 2 9561568
• Mr. Nur Mohammad, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Bangladesh Police, Police Headquarters' Fulbaria, Dhaka-1000 Bangladesh.
• Mr. Mohammad Ibrahim Khalil, Deputy Commissioner (DC), Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Sirajganj, Bangladesh, Fax: +880 751 63901
• Mr. Md. Alamgir Rahman, Superintendent of Police (SP), Office of the Superintendent of Police, Sirajganj, Bangladesh, Faz: +880 751 62415
• Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of Bangladesh to the United Nations in Geneva, 65 rue de Lausanne, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland, Fax: +41 22 738 46 16, E-mail: mission.bangladesh@ties.itu.int
• Embassy of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh in Brussels, 29-31 rue J. Jordaens, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, Fax: +32 2 646 59 98; Email: bdootbrussels@freegates.be

Please also write to the embassies of Bangladesh in your respective country.

*

Geneva, 7 February 2008.

Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply.

[1] See ODHIKAR and Action Aid Bangladesh, Ending Impunity to Acid Violence and Rape.