Three girls are now trying to recover in a hospital in Afghanistan after attackers on a motorbike threw acid in their faces for going to school, according to reports.
The unnamed girls, ages 16 to 18, were on their way to a school in Afghanistan's western Herat province on Saturday when they were attacked by still unidentified assailants, CNN reported.
They were students at one of the largest all-girls schools in the provincial capital, Herat City, said Aziz-ul-Rahman Sarwary, chief of the education ministry for the province.
They were all rushed to Noor hospital in Herat city before their families transferred them elsewhere, according to hospital head Jamal Abdul Naser Akhundzada.
The girls said they were attacked by two men on a motorbike, Akhundzada quoted the victims as saying.
"This is the punishment for going to school," the men reportedly said to the girls after throwing the acid on them, said Akhundzada.
Two of the three victims were in critical condition after acid was splashed onto their faces.
The police are already working on the case to identify the attackers, said Abdul Rauf Ahmadi, who spoke for the provincial police chief.
Afghanistan had a history of terror attacks against girls to keep them from going to school and receiving education.
There were at least 185 reported attacks on schools and hospitals in the country in 2011, a large number of which were linked to groups pushing against girls' education.
"People are crazy," said Razia Jan, who founded a girls' school, the Zabuli Education Center, outside Kabul. "The day we opened the school, (on) the other side of town, they threw hand grenades in a girls' school, and 100 girls were killed.
"Every day, you hear that somebody's thrown acid at a girl's face ... or they poison their water."
"It is heartbreaking to see the way these terrorists treat ... women," Jan said. "In their eyes, a woman is an object that they can control. They are scared that when these girls get an education, they will become aware of their rights as women and as a human being."
"Most of the (local) men and women are illiterate," said Jan, whose school provides free education to girls. "Most of our students are the first generation of girls to get educated."
