'Women are dying for saying no': X enraged after doctor severely injured in Quetta acid attack
No week is a great week to be a woman in Pakistan, but this past week has been a particularly horrific one.
On Saturday, a man threw acid at a female doctor at Quetta’s Civil Hospital, severely injuring her. Dr Mahnoor Nasir survived, but with 70 per cent of her body burned, according to hospital sources.
On Thursday, a 64-year-old man surrendered himself to the police in Karachi and confessed to killing his wife for refusing to engage in intercourse with him the night before.
After going through the horror of witnessing so much crime, Pakistanis on X asked how many more women have to go through this before something actually changes.
As always, there were people online blaming the victims of these tragedies, claiming there was some reason why they were attacked, as if women aren’t attacked at random. Netizens were not having it and responded by calling out the real culprits: misogyny and male entitlement.
People were understandably enraged at why, after so many acid attacks, acid was still easily available for any potential attacker to buy and even carry with him into a hospital.
While the Acid Control Crime and Prevention Act, 2011 requires sellers to record the personal details of buyers, the substance remains commercially available and is readily used for domestic applications like drain cleaning.
In the case of the man who murdered his wife, a clip of him emerged where lawyers were huddled around the killer telling him they’d represent him and he was “in the right”. Users on X were horrified, with one shocked the lawyers could do so and still face their mothers, daughters, wives and sisters at home.
Many believed men need to be taught how to take no for an answer.
And of course, for many, the main culprit is always feminism. Many netizens rolled their eyes at people at the scrutiny around feminism and what feminists stand for when women “continue to be killed, raped and burned by acid attacks”.
One user put one of the biggest struggles of being a woman in Pakistan into perspective — no woman is safe from attacks by entitled men.
A lot of people were angry.
The prevalence of violence against women in Pakistan signifies a deep, systemic rot in the way society thinks about and treats women. Until attitudes change and everyone starts seeing women as human beings worthy of respect and rights, we can’t expect anything to improve.
The question is: how many more women need to be killed and injured before society finally has had enough?









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