A teenage girl, who sustained serious burn injuries along with her sister after being attacked with acid on May 14, died at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) Hospital in Mirpur early Sunday.
The deceased Tanjim Akhter Mala, 16, was from Uttar Digholdi in Bhola’s Sadar upazila and was the daughter of Mohammad Helal. Mala and her sister Marzia, 8, sustained serious burn injuries when unidentified assailants threw acid at them while they were sleeping, in the early hours of May 14.
The injured were initially admitted to Bhola Sadar Hospital. As their condition deteriorated, they were referred to CRP Hospital in the Mirpur area on May 17.
Mala passed this year's SSC examination with good result (A-) from Abdul Mannan Secondary School in the union, and Marzia was a student of class 2 of another local school.
The victims' relatives said the two sisters went to sleep after taking their dinner. Suddenly, family members woke up hearing their screams, as someone had thrown acid at them through the window around 2am – leaving the two sisters critically burned in the face, eyes, and some others parts of the body.
A man named Rajib used to harass Mala over mobile phone, even after she rejected his advances and proposal for starting a relationship. Rajib could have thrown acid on the girls to get back at Mala, the victims’ family reasoned.
