Attack leaves UBC student blind
Shocked staff and students at St. John's College at the University of British Columbia are raising money for a colleague who was viciously attacked while on a visit home to Bangladesh.
Rumana Manzur — who was at UBC pursuing a masters degree in political science — was allegedly brutalized by her husband earlier this month in an assault which has likely left the 33-year-old mother blind.
Colleagues say Manzur returned to Bangladesh to visit her five-year-old daughter and husband.
Manzur alleges her husband pinned her to a bed in a jealous rage, gouged her eyes out with his fingers and bit off part of her nose.
"[We are] obviously just absolutely horrified," said Lisa Sundstrom, Manzur's graduate advisor at UBC. "Very concerned for her, for her well being and for her safety, actually."
Sundstrom said Manzur spoke often of her daughter, but little of her husband
Sundstrom said that many of the people at UBC who know Manzur now wonder if there was something they could have done to protect her.
"Thoughts went through our heads, 'Was there anything I could have picked up on to know, what awaited her there?'"
Her doctors have said Manzur's eyes are so damaged she is unlikely to see again.
Her husband is in police custody.
A rally is planned outside the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday to help raise funds for Manzur's medical bills.
