'It felt like I was being burned alive'
05.10.2015 21:00
A woman who was blinded and disfigured in an acid attack ten years ago says she is finally feeling hopeful for the future.
Three years ago Sonali Mukherjee-Tiwari, 29, from Jharkhand, India, had wanted to kill herself as she still struggled to come to terms with her devastating injuries and the lack of justice dealt to her attackers.
But now she says she is happier and moving forward after getting married in April.
'Whatever my destiny, I will be positive and accept it. I will carry on and not give in and not lose my courage,' she told TLC show Body Bizarre.
Her sister, Neha, who also suffered burns on her arms during the acid attack on Sonali, said: 'We needed to convince her that she had to fight and be courageous and if she did, things would change with time.'
Sonali from Jharkhand, Northern India, had been a 17-year-old college student with a bright future when she was doused in acid in 2002.
The attack was carried out by three men who had felt aggrieved after she spurned their advances.
They broke into her home and threw a jug of the highly corrosive chemical over her face as she slept.
Recalling the incident, Sonali said: 'Even today when I think of the incident my heart is full of pain and anger.
'It felt as if someone had thrown me on a fire I was being burnt alive.'
The gang had regularly catcalled Sonali when she walked to college and they carried out their attack one night after her father, Chandidas Mukherjee, 58, had politely asked them to leave his daughter alone.
Sonali said: 'For a few days the situation was under control, the harassment stopped but I didn't know they were secretly planning their revenge, they wanted to destroy me.'
Sonali suffered 70 per cent burns to her face, neck and arms and was left almost blind and partially deaf.
When Sonali was rushed to hospital on the back of her father's scooter, Dr Narendra Kaushik told the TLC show that she was 'one of the worst cases we had seen'.
She has had 28 procedures in the last ten years to rebuild her face which has involved plastic surgery to stretch her skin over the burnt areas.
She will have further operations in the next few years to reshape her nose and lips so it will be easier for her to eat.
While Sonali will have to live with her injuries for the rest of her life, her attackers served just two-and-half-years in prison and are now free again.
The injustice of this led for Sonali to appeal to the government in 2012 for the right to kill herself as euthanasia was illegal in India.
She said then: 'For the last nine years, I am suffering ... living without hope, without future. If I don't have justice or my health, my only way out is to die. I don't want to live half a life, with half a face.'
However, with the support of her family - and her husband Chittaranjan Tiwari, 29, who she met in 2013 - she is now much happier and positive about the future.
The pair fell in love after Chittaranjan saw Sonali on television - she appeared on India's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in 2013 and won £30,000 to help pay for her plastic surgery.
Chittaranjan got in touch with Sonali and romance blossomed after they then met in person.
(dailymail.co.uk)
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