ianstone
06-15-2010, 07:43 AM
A Meeting With The Acid Attack Victim
http://sl.sky.com/ver1.0/Content/images/store/4/7/64213944-3396-4d71-974e-00810e78bf4d.Full.jpg
Awais Akram was attacked with acid because he'd had a "physically intimate" relationship with a married woman.
One of his attackers, who tried to pour the drain cleaner down his throat, was the woman’s brother, another was her cousin.
I heard Awais’s howls of anguish in court and then saw his appalling scars close up when he agreed to meet me for an interview.
He wanted people to understand what he had gone through, he said.
Doctors thought he would die and he thanks Allah he survived, but people will always stare at him in the street.
But this terrible saga is just as much a story about the two women who are at the centre of it all.
Sadia Khatoon is the young woman he met on Facebook and with whom he struck up a friendship that “wasn’t platonic”, but stopped short of sex.
While he was secretly seeing Sadia, Awais went off to Pakistan and married his fiancé Sameera and then returned to carry on his other relationship.
His fate was sealed when Sadia’s family found out what was going on and a deadly trap was set.
Sadia lured Awais by phone out from his flat in East London and led his attackers right to him.
Police aren’t sure if she did so knowingly, or was forced to do it.
Shortly afterwards detectives were concerned enough for Sadia’s safety to give her an Osman warning, telling her she was in great danger.
She met the cops but refused all offers of protection, insisting she felt quite safe.
Then she flew to Pakistan with her husband Shakeel Abassi and police are “concerned for her welfare.” And they can’t find her.
In another twist, Sadia and her husband are also named as co-conspirators in the acid attack on Awais.
The other woman in Awais’s life is his beautiful wife Sameera, who has had to put up with his infidelity, cope with his injuries, support him through his on-going surgery and accept that their life will be far from the one that was promised.
When I asked Awais what he thought of his wife’s support he smiled sheepishly at her across the room, but was lost for an answer. “What do you expect me to say?” he asked.
Clearly there was no question that she wouldn’t stand by him.
I wanted to tell him he was a very lucky man.
But saying that to a man with awful facial scars, no ears, and blind in one eye didn't seem quite right.
http://sl.sky.com/ver1.0/Content/images/store/4/7/64213944-3396-4d71-974e-00810e78bf4d.Full.jpg
Awais Akram was attacked with acid because he'd had a "physically intimate" relationship with a married woman.
One of his attackers, who tried to pour the drain cleaner down his throat, was the woman’s brother, another was her cousin.
I heard Awais’s howls of anguish in court and then saw his appalling scars close up when he agreed to meet me for an interview.
He wanted people to understand what he had gone through, he said.
Doctors thought he would die and he thanks Allah he survived, but people will always stare at him in the street.
But this terrible saga is just as much a story about the two women who are at the centre of it all.
Sadia Khatoon is the young woman he met on Facebook and with whom he struck up a friendship that “wasn’t platonic”, but stopped short of sex.
While he was secretly seeing Sadia, Awais went off to Pakistan and married his fiancé Sameera and then returned to carry on his other relationship.
His fate was sealed when Sadia’s family found out what was going on and a deadly trap was set.
Sadia lured Awais by phone out from his flat in East London and led his attackers right to him.
Police aren’t sure if she did so knowingly, or was forced to do it.
Shortly afterwards detectives were concerned enough for Sadia’s safety to give her an Osman warning, telling her she was in great danger.
She met the cops but refused all offers of protection, insisting she felt quite safe.
Then she flew to Pakistan with her husband Shakeel Abassi and police are “concerned for her welfare.” And they can’t find her.
In another twist, Sadia and her husband are also named as co-conspirators in the acid attack on Awais.
The other woman in Awais’s life is his beautiful wife Sameera, who has had to put up with his infidelity, cope with his injuries, support him through his on-going surgery and accept that their life will be far from the one that was promised.
When I asked Awais what he thought of his wife’s support he smiled sheepishly at her across the room, but was lost for an answer. “What do you expect me to say?” he asked.
Clearly there was no question that she wouldn’t stand by him.
I wanted to tell him he was a very lucky man.
But saying that to a man with awful facial scars, no ears, and blind in one eye didn't seem quite right.