A Month Passes, Long Island Police Still Clueless About Nafiah Fatima’s Acid Attacker
It’s been more than a month and the Long Island Police is still unable to find any leads about Nafiah Fatima’s acid attacker.
21-year-old Fatima, a Pakistani-American medical student was attacked on March 17th just outside her home, leaving her severely burned and nearly blind. The GoFundMe campaign set up for Nafiah Fatima shares her story and the surveillance video of the scary incident.
The video shows her walking in the driveway of her Elmont home when the unknown assailant came up behind her, wearing gloves, and splashed her in the face with a dark-colored, hazardous substance.
According to the GoFundMe page, the liquid caused severe burning to the Hofstra University student’s eyes, chest and arms, and even melted her contact lenses onto her eyes, potentially blinding her.
‘Top Chef’ host Padma Lakshmi shared Fatima’s story with her one million Instagram followers and shared the GoFundMe that has been set up to help with the expenses.
Lakshmi said that she has known the family for a decade and that a month after the attack, said Ikram is still unable to eat solid foods after screaming during the attack, and unintentionally ingesting some of the acids. She also said that her vision is in question because the contacts she was wearing at the time of the attack melted into her eyes, due to the acid.
For now, Fatima knows she has a long road ahead, telling everyone to “just keep me in their prayers.”
In addition to healing prayers, her family is now seeking justice. Talking to NBC New York her mother said, “If anyone has any clue, any tip to find the person who did this to my daughter — we’re begging, please come forward.”
The Nassau County Police Department said Wednesday that they were upping the reward to $20,000 for information on the case, saying “we will put all the resources behind to make sure we go out and catch the individual.” Police said they believe the attacker got away in a red Nissan Altima with fog lights that were spotted on several surveillance cameras in the area, and don’t believe they were acting alone. (Detectives request anyone with information regarding this crime to contact Nassau County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS or to call 911. All callers will remain anonymous.)
While the debate rages across social media if this was a crime of passion or crime of hate, it is without a doubt one of the most heinous forms of crime that we have seen. Nafiah Fatima’s life will never be the same again. The physical scars may fade with time, but this is the kind of experience we hope no one ever goes through.
Our prayers are with Nafiah Fatima and her family. We hope they find justice soon.
