Acid attack victim in UK claims police indifference

LONDON: British Pakistani acid assault victim Jameel Mukhtar has complained that the Metropolitan police didn’t take seriously attack on him because of his ethnicity and showed indifference to horrific crime committed against him by a racist.

Jameel Mukhtar and his model cousin Resham Khan were attacked with acid around two months ago, disfiguring both of them and leaving Jameel Mukhtar paralysed for life.  Speaking to Geo News here, Jameel Mukhtar said the police refused to treat attack on him as a “hate crime despite witnessing that I was burning, that I was in coma for two days, that I have been paralysed and suffered horrific injuries and that half of my body has been burnt”.

Jameel Mukhtar, whose parents hail from Mirpur in Azad Kashmir, says his attacker John Tomlin, 24, was not arrested by the police for three weeks unless he himself walked into a police station and presented himself to the police confessing that he was responsible for the acid attack.

“I would have been treated differently if I was not a Pakistani. Police could have turned the country upside down if it was the other way round. Media could have called it a terror attack and the police would have launched terrorism investigation but because I happen to be a Muslim and Pakistani origin, the whole matter was treated as just another incident. Until today, I don’t have a contact person in the police who could tell me what’s happening with the investigation. My fears that my family could be attacked again were dismissed,” Jameel Mukhtar said.

Jameel Mukhtar can’t look straight anymore and he feels all the time as if he is burning. He has gone deaf in right ear and his skin on right side down to his legs has come off completely. Half of his body is now disfigured and it doesn’t look like he will ever be able to live a normal life again. 

“I feel embarrassed looking at myself. I am not the same person anymore. The acid felt cold when poured on me, it started to burn and then melted through my skin, clothes and shoes. The injuries are life-changing. My right eye is damaged and I am deaf in one ear. I remain in continuous pain,” he said.

The acid attack victim said that he lived a normal happy life just two months ago with his family and had dreams in life which have been ruined. “Now, I can’t walk, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t even go to the toilet - I can’t do anything for myself. I can’t wash myself. I can’t plan anything. I am no more the same old person. My dreams have died. There’s nothing I can do anymore as a crippled man,” he said. 

Jameel Mukhtar said that the social services have not provided him the right care and help. “I need support for life now. The government needs to look at my case and tell me why and how it happened to me. The police must answer why it has failed me and that why it treated attack on me as a hate crime when I went to media? Why not before that and where they failed,” demanded Jameel Mukhtar.