Acid victim wants son to be plastic surgeon

MUZAFFARGARH: Rukhsana Bibi, a central character in Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s ‘Saving Face’, is yet to see the film but is happy to know that it has won an Oscar.

“Even during its making, Sharmeen was confident that her film will win international recognition,” she says.

Rukshana’s husband threw acid on her in 2009. The Acid Survivors Foundation arranged her rehabilitation and treatment and news item about the acid attack attracted Ms Chinoy and her team to the case.

There has since been a patch up between her and her husband. She was at her parents’ home when Dawn talked to her on Tuesday.

Sequences of ‘Saving Face’ were shot in Basti Allah Bukhsh.

Rukshana said she agreed to come before the camera since she wanted to tell the world about the large number of acid attack victims in Pakistan.

‘Saving Face’ features some six such victims from the Muzaffargrah’s Alipur and Jatoi tehsils.

While a meeting with Rukhsana materialised after some difficulty, an effort to talk to other victims was frustrated when their close relatives refused them permission to talk to the media.

Rukhsana says her son, Zainul Abideen, was born in Islamabad during the shooting of the film.

He is six months old, and his mother wishes that just as the ‘Saving Face’ has won its makers laurels, the fame could help her somehow give her family a house of their own.

And she has already decided what profession she wants her son to follow when he grows up: she wants her son to be a plastic surgeon.

Dawn