Tuesday, May 17 2005 16:29 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Indore: The women and child development supervisor, Shakuntala Verma, who was severely assaulted, today (May 17, 2005) said that she has not fully recognised the prime accused arrested by police, as she had not seen him earlier. Verma, however, did not rule out other reasons apart from the child marriage behind the assault.

"They (police) have shown me various photographs, but I have not fully recognised the arrested person, as I have not seen him before," she told reporters from her ICU bed at the Gokuldas hospital.

"I have been touring number of villages, as part of my job and may be some persons were affected because of it. This could be the reason behind the incident," she said.

When specifically asked whether preventing child marriage could not be the reason behind the gruesome attack, Verma said "baal vivah bhi ho sakta hai" (it could be child marriage also).

Verma's sister, Usha Choudhry told reporters late yesterday (May 16, 2005) night that "police has shown three different photographs of the accused to my sister and among them she has rejected two and on the last one she has said that this could be the attacker, but w as not sure about it."

On media reports linking her family members specially the issue of daughter's marriage to an already married person behind the attack, Verma urged media not to drag her family members in the incident.

She also thanked the administration for providing her best of possible treatment.

Verma was attacked on May 10 at her Rajgarh residence by a person with a sword virtually chopping off her one hand and grievously injuring other hand as well as head allegedly for her attempts to prevent child marriage at village Bhangarh.

Anil Garg who has re-attached both her hands after a long surgery in two phases said that the condition of the woman is stable but not totally out of danger, which is a routine thing in such type of cases.

"We are worried only about infection and therefore taking all precautions to prevent it," he said.

Police has not yet come out with the exact cause behind the incident despite arresting the prime accused two days back and is also not in a position to clarify whether the incident was a fallout of her attempts to prevent child marriage or something else.