Mumbai: The man who threw acid at 23-year-old Preeti Rathi at a station in Mumbai, causing injuries that killed her, must be hanged, a court ruled today.
Ankur Panwar, who lived next door to Ms Rathi’s family in Delhi, was found guilty earlier this week of murdering her.
In 2013, Ms Rathi travelled to Mumbai with her father to begin work as a nurse with the Indian navy. Mr Panwar was on the same train.
At the Bandra station, he tapped Ms Rathi on the shoulder. When she turned around, he flung acid at her, his face covered with a handkerchief to conceal his identity.
Amar Singh Rathi, who travelled to Mumbai for the verdict in his daughter’s case, told NDTV, “He got what he deserved. There was no possibility of leniency for what he had done.”
After a month in hospital, Ms Rathi died. Parts of her throat and lungs had been destroyed after she accidentally swallowed the acid sloshed across her face.
Mr Panwar was arrested a year later. The police said he was jealous of Ms Rathi’s success and frustrated by his family goading him about being unemployed while lauding Ms Rathi as a success. So he allegedly took the same train to Mumbai that the Rathis were on, attacked the young woman, and then boarded another train departing Mumbai, reported NDTV.
“Preeti had told her friend in hospital that Ankur used to harass her in Delhi and even tried to propose marriage to her. When she refused his advances, that’s when he decided to teach her a lesson,” said special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam after the conviction earlier this week.
The police said Mr Panwar wanted to “deface Preeti so she would never get a job again”.