Two men held for throwing acid on 22-year-old teacher in Bhopal

Police arrested two men on Sunday from Dongargarh in Chhattisgarh in connection with an alleged acid attack on a 22-year-old polytechnic teacher in Bhopal’s posh Arera colony.

Police arrested two men on Sunday from Dongargarh in Chhattisgarh in connection with an alleged acid attack on a 22-year-old polytechnic teacher in Bhopal’s posh Arera colony.

One of the two people arrested was the victim’s relative who had unsuccessfully asked her to marry him, police said.

The college teacher — Shailja Namdeo — sustained severe burn injuries on her back and legs after two motorcycle-borne assailants allegedly threw acid on her in Bhopal on Saturday morning.

Bhopal Police said the prime accused was 28-year-old Triloki Namdeo, the brother of Shailaja’s cousin’s husband.

He is a resident of Dongargarh in the Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh and was assisted by his friend, 21-year-old Shubham Tiwari (21), police added.

Accused was pressuring the woman for past one year to marry him

Sources said Triloki was allegedly pressuring the woman for the past one year to marry him. He told her that he would divorce his wife to marry her.

When the woman spurned his proposal, he made several calls to her and threatened to kill her, police said.

Triloki was in Bhopal on the morning on the day of incident and called Shailaja at 7.55 am to inquire if she had left for college but didn’t tell her that he was in the Madhya Pradesh capital, sources said.

Assailant rode some 700 kms on his motorcycle to reach Bhopal

Triloki allegedly told police he picked up Shubham and rode some 700 kms on his motorcycle to reach Bhopal. They purchased the burqa from a Raipur market and battery acid from Rajnandgaon, sources said.

After the attack they left the city for Itarasi, from where they booked the bike for its transportation to Dongargarh in a train, and then left for their hometown.

Police said one of the alleged assailants covered his face and the other put on a burqa before stopping the woman to inquire about an address. When she turned back, the person in the burqa took out a bottle and threw acid on her, sources said.

The teacher immediately pulled off her clothes and ran back to her hostel naked. The hostel owner rushed her to a private hospital where her condition was stated to be stable.

Victim said someone was following her for the past three days

In her statement to the police on Saturday, the victim said someone was following her for the past three days but she had not paid any attention to it. The police got suspicious about Triloki when the woman told the police he called her up in the morning and inquired about her well-being, sources said.

“To nab the accused, we formed different police teams. The teams have done a good job and arrested the accused,” said Superintendent of police (south) Anshuman Singh said.