Man Throws Acid on Cohabiting Partner of 25 Years

Worsening conditions of acid attack victim, Geeta Virkar

A 62-year-old man was arrested for allegedly throwing acid on his live-in partner in the Girgaon area of Mumbai on Friday. Geeta Virkar, the victim was a resident of Fanas Wadi who suffered some severe amount of burns.

The accused, Mahesh Pujari was in a live-in relationship with Geeta for the past 25 years but recently, things were not going well between them. Geeta had been telling Mahesh to move out of her house and after he went, he returned two days later with a plastic bottle filled with acid. One day when she went to fetch water early at 5:30 am, the incident took place.

People immediately called the ‘Nirbhaya Pathak’ who reached within 10 minutes. While Mahesh tried to flee from there, Geeta was immediately taken to Bhatia Nana Chowk hospital. “Her condition became worse and she was shifted to Masina hospital in Byculla. She used to eat and talk as well but after 18 days of treatment, she had expired as there was more than 50% burn in her body and due to multiple organ failure”, said Inspector Manoj Eknath Shedige.

Mr. Shedige arrested Mahesh and he was sent to judicial custody. After 15 days he was sent to Magistrate Custody Remand (MCR) where the decision has been declared to put murder charges on him that is section 302, 326 A of the Indian Penal Code for voluntarily causing grievous hurt by the use of acid, 307 attempts to murder, 504 intentional insults with intent to provoke breach of the peace and 506 punishments for criminal intimidation, and currently is in Arthur Road Jail in Parel.

“They used to stay together in her chawl room. Her husband had left her long ago and the man’s wife had left him. He has a daughter and a son from an earlier marriage, while the woman has two sons from her earlier marriage,” said a police officer from L T Marg police station.