Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Dec 15: The Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal has sent notices to online shopping platforms Amazon and Flipkart over ‘easy availability of acid’. The letters comes after the horrific acid attack on a 17-year-old schoolgirl in Delhi’s Dwarka by two bike-borne men who confessed to have bought the acid from Flipkart.
The letter reads, “The Commission has also learnt that acid is easily available on leading online shopping platforms such as ‘Amazon’ and ‘Flipkart’ which is illegal. The easy of availability of acid on online platforms is a matter of grave concern and needs to be checked urgently.”
The commission has also asked the e-shopping websites to inform the reason for availability of acid on their platform. They have also been asked to provide complete details of sellers who have placed ‘acid’ as a product and whether their licence was checked beforehand.
Both Amazon and Flipkart have been asked to provide the Action Taken Report and other answers by Dec 20 in view of gravity of the matter.
On her way to school, the Class 12 student was attacked by two males on a bike, one of whom threw acid at her. The teen was seen backing away and then stumbling in pain on a CCTV camera.
As per information, Sachin Arora (20), who had a fall-out with the girl in September, planned the attack. Two others inclding Harshit Aggarwal (19) and Virender Singh (22) assisted him.
While Virender moved Sachin’s scooter and phone to a different area in order to fabricate an alibi and deceive the authorities, Sachin and Harshit attacked the schoolgirl with acid. Despite their best efforts to divert the police’s attention, all three of them were taken into custody within 12 hours.
According to senior police officer Preet Hooda, utilising technical proof, Sachin Arora purchased it through Flipkart and paid with his e-wallet.
After the incident, Swati Maliwal had said buying acid is “as easy as buying vegetables”.
“It is unfortunate that despite repetitive recommendations of the commission, the retail sale of acid is not banned. Acid is being sold openly in markets, unchecked. In fact, it is as easy to obtain acid as it is to purchase vegetables! The government must ban retail sale of acid,” she tweeted.
