Mumbai:
The family of 23-year-old nurse Preeti Rathi, who died yesterday after acid was thrown on her at a railway station in Mumbai, met Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil today and demanded a CBI inquiry into the case.
"He accepted our demand and said he would speak to Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Monday. We have been told that politicians forget their promises but we are hopeful that he will keep his word," the victim's father, Anand Singh Rathi, told reporters. He was accompanied by members from NGOs working for rehabilitation of acid attack victims.
Acid was thrown on Preeti by some unknown people as she got off the New Delhi-Mumbai Garib Rath Express at Bandra Terminus on May 2 to join her job as a nurse in the army hospital in Mumbai. She died yesterday in a hospital in Mumbai after an infection spread throughout her body. Preeti had been communicating with her parents by writing messages on pieces of paper after the attack.
It has been over a month since the incident but the Railway Police, who have been investigating the case so far, have not been able to trace the culprit yet.
The attack took place on a bustling railway platform. The platform and the station are covered by at least a dozen cameras and Bandra Terminus has a full-fledged railway police outpost. In spite of that the culprit managed to slip away.
Pragya Singh, representing an NGO called Stop Acid Attacks, told reporters, "RR Patil has assured us that he will set up a committee to look into the issue of regulating acid sale, which will have members from NGOs so that we can make our society safer for women."