“It was a Sunday afternoon and I was asleep in my drawing room when I heard Bilal’s voice, ‘Fakhra … Fakhra wake up!’ I jerked as he held me by my hair and opened my mouth. Because I resisted he couldn’t get me to swallow. But then he threw something on me. At first I thought it was a joke. I did not understand what had happened to me. Then he left, so I ran after him. My house was on the second floor and by the time I got to the first floor, I realised I could not see”. SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2000
Surviving an acid attack is worse than dying. The acid burned the hair off her head, fused her lips, blinded one eye, obliterated her left ear and melted her breasts. She breathed with difficulty. “I don’t look human anymore” she used to repeat, “My face is a prison for me”.
When her four-year-old son Nauman first visited his mother in a crowded public hospital, where for three agonising months she fought for her life, he ran way crying: “This is not my mother!”
“Fakhra’s face is a crime of a man against a woman. It is not a shame for her,” points out Tehmina Durrani, her guardian angel who is still conducting an unabated struggle for accountability.
FAKHRA YOUNUS MET HER TRAGIC END WHEN SHE JUMPED TO HER DEATH FROM The SIXTH FLOOR OF HER APARTMENT BUILDING IN ROME ON MARCH 17.
Italy is proud to have provided help to Fakhra Younus and her son, a small apartment, medical treatment including 39 counts of reconstructive surgery and a small disability pension.
Obviously that wasn’t enough to heal the scars of her soul. She became fluent in Italian and we like to think of her as one of us.
A conspicuous congregation of resident Italian nationals assembled at the Karachi airport this Sunday to receive and pay homage to her remains bears testimony to that.
The fact of the matter is that she was still very much in love with her country and eager to come back and fight for regaining her rightful place in this society.
Now the real question is: has she finally lost her struggle? This is for the Pakistani people to answer.