BAHAWALPUR: A woman lawyer suffered serious burns in an alleged acid attack in Lodhran on Monday night.

According to police sources, Advocate Nausheen Sabahat was in her house in Agha Nadeem Colony when someone knocked at the main door. As she opened the door, four people threw acid on her, causing serious burns on her face and body.

She was immediately shifted to the district headquarters hospital for treatment.

In her complaint to police, the lawyer said she was pleading some cases involving disputed property and the attackers had been trying to force her to stop her from representing their rivals in the court.

The lawyer said that as she refused to buckle under their demand, they subjected her to acid attack.

On her complaint, Lodhran police have registered a case, without any arrest so far.

ARRESTED: The Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) claims that police have arrested 23 power thieves on Tuesday, on the fifth day of the ongoing crackdown on electricity pilferers in the region.

A Mepco press release said so far 2,597 alleged electricity thieves have been arrested during the crackdown in 13 districts of the region. These power pilferers were also slapped with a total fine of over Rs101 million.

It said former minister Khusro Bakhtiar’s chief coordinator Ajmal Rashid Korai was allegedly caught red-handed while stealing electricity. Korai had already defaulted on payment of Rs1,298,000 Mepco dues.

Meanwhile, In Bahawalpur, 157 electricity thieves faced action on Tuesday when Mepco teams removed 13 transformers over non-payment of tubewells’ bills in different areas.

Deputy Commissioner Zaheer Anwar Jappa, while chairing a meeting to review the ongoing campaign against power thieves, said that in the district during previous five days, the raiding teams detected theft of over 115,000 units of electricity.

He added that the number of registered FIRs against power pilferers rose to 44 in the district, while 53 more application were sent to respective police stations for registration of cases against alleged thieves.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2023