It's all for dowry

Victim of brutal domestic violence, Sukhi Akter may never be able to see again.

Her right eye was gouged out by her husband and she now cannot see anything with her left eye, which too was badly damaged in the incident, according to doctors.

"We have placed a shape confirmer in the patient's right eye socket … She sees nothing with her left eye," said Dr Golam Morshed after conducting a surgery on her at the National Institute for Ophthalmology (NIO) in the capital yesterday afternoon.

"Her left eyeball is bruised, which probably has affected her nerves, disrupting the communication between the eye and the brain,” the doctor explained.

There's hardly any possibility for the 26-year-old housewife to get back her eyesight even if she is treated abroad, he added.

On Friday, Sukhi's husband Rabiul Hossain with the help of other family members plucked out one of her eyes and damaged the other for dowry at their house at Jinjira in Savar on the outskirts of the capital.

Sukhi's brother Mohsin Khan said the right eye was being preserved at the hospital but it was of no use, according to doctors.

Visiting the NIO yesterday, this correspondent found the victim's farmer father Noor Mohammad begging doctors and others to help his daughter get back her eyesight.

Her mother Laila Begum wanted justice. "I want justice; eye for an eye."

Rabiul, the husband who was handed over to police by the neighbours following the incident, was in Dubai between 2012 and June this year.

When he first went there, he took Tk 3 lakh for Sukhi's family. Then he came home last year and again went there after a few weeks.

During his entire stay in Dubai, he never sent money for his wife, according to the victim's family.

After returning home this time, he started demanding Tk 1.5 lakh from Sukhi's parents as dowry and would often beat her up for failing to give him the money.

Aggrieved by such repeated torture, Sukhi in the first week of July left her husband and went to her parents.

Sukhi's father Noor said he was not willing to send back his daughter. But in a village arbitration, Rabiul's family apologised and took Sukhi back, promising no recurrence of such torture.

But the day before the Eid, Rabiul gauged out Sukhi's eye with an electrical tester while his brothers Idris Ali and Akter Hosen and sister Dholi Begum had her pinned down.

Sukhi's brother Mohsin filed a case, said Shahed Ali, sub-inspector of Savar Police Station. "The accused are on the run and we are after them."

According to Ain O Salish Kendra, 161 cases of domestic violence were reported in the first six months of this year, up from 148 in the same period last year 2014.