Lahore’s Naulakha Bazaar is one of the many shopping hubs of the provincial capital. In sharp contrast to the erstwhile necklace or the pavilion from which it drew its name, the bazaar is now known more for used foreign clothing.

The sheepish clients of second hand apparel haggle with the vendors, while rummaging through the scattered piles scattered around without much care for sizes or colours.

A part of the bazaar attracts another kind of sneaky customer looking for a strange commodity – an innocent looking colourless liquid called Sulphuric Acid or just ‘Acid’. The acid has variety of industrial uses, but off and on, a few citizens utilise it to dispense their own obnoxious brand of justice.

Kaneez Fatima was on the receiving end of just such an act of justice. But, unlike many others, she decided not to suffer in silence.

A typical Pakistani courtroom is enough to intimidate even a casual observer. Unlike in movies, trials are painfully slow affairs held in cramped rooms, involving fatigued litigants and noisy lawyers.

Women are most usually seen only in cases of familial or divorce matters. The sight of a young, 17-year-old girl in the midst of a courtroom trial is a rarity.

Kaneez Fatima was that rarity.

Her exceptional presence was made more extraordinary by the freshness of her wounds. The teenager nonchalantly walked into the Anti-Terrorist Court Lahore and confidently narrated her trauma. Meanwhile, her onlookers and tormentors kept shooting her questioning, vitriolic glares.