Acid attack – produce the evidence

Oct 11, 2025 Editorial, News

(Kaieteur News) – The court is looked upon as the last bastion of sanity in Guyana. It should be, and still is, to some extent. From time to time, we have wondered why, at first glance, how some rulings of the judiciary leave a cloud of doubt hanging over law-abiding citizens, those who have placed some interest in a better quality of existence in Guyana. Some rulings from the bench perplex, leave many uneasy. The same pertains to the Guyana Police Force, regarding some of its work. Who has certain issues right, that’s the question? Take the instance involving a heinous acid attack on two female workers attached to the Balwant Singh Hospital.

A woman is hospitalised, badly disfigured, likely to have lifelong trauma and scars from that cowardly acid attack in the vicinity of Middle and East Streets. It is a busy intersection in Georgetown due to the proximity of the huge GPHC complex of buildings, and the cluster of private pharmacies and other businesses, which attracts an endless stream of traffic daily. Yet there was this callous acid attack that marked two female workers of the nearby Balwant Singh Hospital, as if none of that mattered. When horrified Guyanese are looking to the court system to hold the line, and apply judicial wisdom, the alleged acid thrower is freed on bail by the court, which at first glance brought shudders.

For balance, it could be that the court was depending on the video evidence that the Guyana Police Force (GPF) said it had in its possession. The GPF, however, could not produce that video evidence, which tied the court’s hands. It would be an injustice to detain a citizen indefinitely, based on the production of evidence, which either doesn’t exist, or can’t be delivered. Then, there was the matter of the confession from the alleged acid thrower, which only made a hazy, troubling situation even murkier. Whatever weight it had, that confession diminished in value when the claim surfaced that coercion was involved in its extraction out of the alleged acid attacker. His wife was arrested, detained by the GPF, and being used to pressure him into that confession. In the meantime, a young woman has her face terribly burnt, and reports are that she has lost sight in one eye. Her fellow worker is likely moving around in some state of uncertainty and dread. If before and so callously, who knows what and when, from any source?

From what is known to date, who has this story straight, and is being upfront before the court and public? Who is giving the full story relative to incriminating video evidence and confession tendered? Who is playing games with the gruesome injury of a violently attacked female, on the one hand, and the freedom of an alleged perpetrator on another?

The GPF either has evidence with persuasive substance in it, or it doesn’t. The GPF has a confession that was obtained by lawful means, or it doesn’t have much of anything. No video evidence to substantiate what happened and who is responsible in what must qualify as a high-profile incident that has some linkage to domestic violence, doesn’t leave either the GPF or the court, in a place where confidence reigns. No confession that isn’t properly obtained has no leg to stand on. Certainly, the court didn’t have much of anything to go on. Reports are that the GPF is ‘livid’ that bail was granted to the alleged acid thrower. A reading of the facts of this harrowing situation, as those are available in the public domain, didn’t leave the court with much choice. The GPF may be better advised to look inward, and redirect its anger there. The prosecutor is left on his own, and the court is stranded between outraged public opinion and having to rule with a sober, detached mind. It is a lose-lose proposition, which leaves a bad taste all around, with the hospitalized victim probably asking herself if she will ever see the face of justice. All this has taken place against President Ali’s inaugural promise to “kill” domestic violence. It appears that before such can happen, some old ways in the GPF will have to be killed first.

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acid attack, Balwant Singh Hospital, Editorial, Evidence, Guyana Police Force

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