LUDHIANA: A day after acid attack on a 24-year-old woman at her house in New Puneet Nagar, Tibba Road, her family pointed the finger of suspicion at a neighbour, who had proposed marriage to her the previous year.Pushpa, a seamstress, was attacked three days after her engagement.Pushpa’s brother Rahul Kumar said, “After my sister refused his marriage proposal, the factory worker, also 24, threatened her that he would not let her marry anyone else.”Pushpa, her father Ram Bachan and mother Gian Mati were home, while her younger brother Vijay had gone to attend his coaching classes when a masked man knocked at their door on Thursday evening.Gian Mati said, “My husband, a hosiery worker, was working on the first floor of our house. After helping him, I came downstairs around 7pm. Pushpa was busy with the household chores when someone called her from the window around 7.30pm. The man said, ‘Didi come out. I have to give a suit for stitching’. As soon as Pushpa opened the door, the man threw acid on her and fled.”On hearing her screams, Gian Mati rushed to her. “I closed the door fearing the man might attack her again. Pushpa was screaming. When I opened the door, she ran out crying. We then took her to a hospital,” she added.The attacker had a 5-litre can full of acid. “Pushpa would have suffered more burns had he thrown the entire content on her,” said Rahul, a student of a college in Amritsar. The family said attempts were made to harm her earlier, too.“On the night of November 14, a man came to our house, gave Pushpa a polybag and asked her to stitch a suit. The clothes smelled weird. When my sister pointed this out to him, the man snatched the polybag and sped away on his bike. His face was not clear in the darkness. We suspect that day, too, the accused wanted to harm Pushpa,” said Rahul.Additional deputy commissioner of police-IV Rajbeer Singh Boparai said, “Pushpa’s statement has been recorded. The spurned lover is the main suspect. On the day of the incident, two men came to her house on a motorcycle.”

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