MULTAN, Nov 1: The family members of two victims of acid attack led a demonstration here on Friday to protest against the highhandedness and apathy of the local police.

The demonstration was organised by the Multan chapter of Jamaat-i-Islami. Besides the bereaved family and Jamaat workers, scores of other people including lawyers, doctors and political activists attended the rally to express solidarity with the victims.

Rabia (18) and her niece Khola (4) were among the victims when someone threw acid in the courtyard of their home in New Multan Colony on July 24. Rabia’s father, Daud Aziz, and mother Tahira Aziz also suffered burns. All of them had been asleep.

Both Rabia and Khola later died at Nishtar hospital. Mr Aziz and his wife have yet to recover from the attack and the shock.

Mr Aziz had lodged an FIR with the new Multan police the day after the tragic night against one Zafar Siyal, with whose son Rabia had once been engaged. However, after passage of more than three months, the police have not even submitted the chargesheet against the accused. Rather, some of the police officials have allegedly been pressurising the victims into withdrawing the case against Mr Zafar, who works as a cashier at a filling station managed by military authorities.

Apart from Mohammad Ali, brother of Rabia and father of Khola, prominent among speakers at the rally were former PML-N senator Advocate Rafiq Rijwana, Intizar Qureshi and Jamaat-i-Islami’s chief in Multan Chaudhry Abdul Lateef.

The rally condemned the inhuman and unprofessional conduct of Multan police and warned of a protest campaign that would include sit-ins, siege of the offices of police highups and courting arrests if the police did not resolve the case within a week.