A woman and her 12-year-old daughter suffered serious injuries in an acid attack in Pakistan's central Punjab province, police said today.
Sughra Bibi, 37, a resident of a village in Khanewal district, 300 km from provincial capital Lahore, was going with her daughter Zoya to see a doctor yesterday when two unidentified men threw acid on them and fled, witnesses and police officials said.
Passersby took them to the District Headquarters Hospital in Khanewal, where doctors described their condition as critical.
"Some 50 per cent of the body of the woman and her daughter has been burnt and their condition is very serious," policeman Wasim Ahmed quoted a doctor as saying.
Ahmed said Sughra Bibi's husband works in the Gulf. One of her relatives said in a statement that a man in her neighbourhood was allegedly forcing her to have relations with him, he added.
Police have launched an investigation into the attack. Despite a new law with stringent punishment for acid attacks, women continue to be targeted in this manner in Punjab, the country's most populous province.
