File Photo. Farooq Naeem—AFP
Attackers on motorcycles targeted the girls in two separate attacks.
At least five girls were wounded in two separate acid attacks perpetrated by motorcycle riders in Balochistan province, police said on Tuesday.
In the latest incident, two unidentified assailants on a motorcycle sprayed acid on two girls, aged 14 and 15, in the town of Mastung. “One girl’s face was wounded and the other’s neck got acid burns,” said local police official Wazir Lango.
The girls were returning from the local market when the attack occurred on Tuesday, Lango said, adding that doctors have not yet specified how severe the wounds were. He said the girls were admitted to hospital, while the police had begun to investigate, but so far the motive behind the attack was unclear.
Separately, two other unknown assailants riding a motorbike threw acid on three girls in their twenties in Quetta on Monday when they were also returning from a market, according to the city’s police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema. He said that girls had suffered three to 11 percent burns on their faces.
Acid attacks are common in Pakistan with scores of such assaults taking place each year, often for spurning the advances of men. Victims are left with horrendous injuries and are often blinded.
Their plight became the focus of a 40-minute Oscar-winning documentary Saving Face by a Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy in 2012.