HYDERABAD, Dec 15: As many as 17 incidents of burn, involving women, took place in the last 11 months according to the record available with the burns ward of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS).

The figures were collected by the Aurat Foundations Citizens Action Committee for Women’s Rights.

The report said that normally such incidents were treated as accidental cases and were not prosecuted.

In these incidents, females between the ages of 14 and 60 suffered 40 per cent to 90 per cent burn injuries.

The first incident took place in February this year when one Saima was brought to the hospital following an incident in her home.

Later, the cases of Zeenat, Husna, Parveen, Sadaf, Sobya, Sughra, Ishrat, Shanti, Saima, Sakina, Shabeena, Mehrunnisa, Shahida, and Hazooran were reported in the ward. Nine were married.

Of these women, Ishrat, Parveen, and Zeenat succumbed to their burn injuries.

It had been noted that in these cases mostly kerosene was used, which is normally available in homes.

Lack of dowry, issues of love marriage, and birth of kids remained the main reasons behind such cases.

According to doctors, burn wounds badly affected the water available within the human body, ultimately melting the skin. The burn injuries also harm lungs, kidneys, and the heart.

The study shows that the people who survived such incidents have to face other problems in their normal life as they can not bear the heat, summer, and warm clothes.

Section of attempted murder was incorporated in the FIRs of Zeenat, Ishrat, and Shanti, leading to the arrests of Zeenat’s husband and her brother-in-law.

The matter of Shanti was disposed of following a patch-up between the two families.

The woman medico legal officer referred the burns victims to the burns ward where a male doctor started looking after them.

Police confined the scope of their investigation to the points of accidental cases, raised by the victims’ relatives. So many actual facts do not come to the fore.

The study says that unfortunately, because of all these reasons, the cases of such women do not go beyond the official record of the hospital.

Hunger strike: A group of activists of the All Pakistan Noonari Welfare Association, Sindh, observed a token hunger strike outside the press club here on Friday to protest against the murder of Liaquat Noonari and kidnapping of Shamsuddin Noonari in Jacobabad district.

Talking to newsmen the president of the association, Masood Ahmad Noonari, and general secretary Ashraf Ali Noonari alleged Liaquat was killed and Shamsuddin was kidnapped by the Khosa tribesmen.