The Tamil Nadu Government today said it will take steps to control and regulate sale of acid in the State. The announcement comes in the wake of acid attacks that claimed the lives of two young women in Chennai in the past fortnight.
“A Bill (in this regard) will be moved during the coming Budget session of the State Assembly and adopted,” Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said in a statement in Chennai.
Condoling the death of a 20-year-old girl who succumbed on February 24 to burns sustained in an acid attack by a man last month, Ms. Jayalalithaa announced a relief of Rs. two lakh from the Chief Minister’s General Relief Fund to the family of the deceased. The girl, an employee in an Internet parlour, was attacked for spurning the marriage proposal of the accused.
On February 12, a 23-year-old software engineer died in a hospital here after battling severe burns she had suffered in an acid attack at a bus terminus in Karaikal, near Nagapattinam, on November 14 by a construction worker whose overtures she had rejected.
The death of the two young girls in acid attacks has triggered demands for checking easy availability of acid. A petition was also filed in the Madras High Court seeking a ban on over-the-counter sale of the chemical. The court had, on Monday, issued notices to the Central and State Governments in this regard.
