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How An Acid Attack Survivor Found Love Through A 'Wrong Number'

Right connection.
ANI

Three months ago, little did 26-year-old Lalita Bansi and 27-year-old Ravi Shankar Singh know that a 'wrong number' would irrevocably change the course of their lives. Bansi had dialled Shankar's number by mistake. When he saw the missed call and phoned her back, the two got talking and were soon conversing every day. Yesterday, they were married in Mumbai.

"I am feeling very happy. I had never thought that I would ever get married," Bansi told ANI. Five years ago, Bansi was attacked by her cousins in a family dispute in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, just fifteen days before her marriage was scheduled to take place. The attack left her face completely burned. Since then, she has undergone 17 surgeries, and still needs to get 12 more surgeries done.

"We spoke and I fell in love with her voice. Our conversations continued on a daily basis and in the process, I proposed to her," Singh told The Hindu. Bansi soon told Singh about her acid attack, but that didn't change the way he felt about her. "She said she didn't deserve me, and told me about the scarring attack. But even without seeing her, I knew I wanted to be with her, looks didn't matter," Singh told The Indian Express.

Today, Bansi is a member of Sahaas Foundation, a Mumbai-based organisation that works for acid attack survivors and has helped her with her rehabilitation and marriage. Singh works as a CCTV operator. The couple's love story has attracted a fair bit of attention. While their wedding outfits were sponsored by fashion designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, actor Vivek Oberoi gifted them a flat in Mumbai.

"Miracles do happen," Bansai told The Hindustan Times. "Who would have thought an acid attack and 17 surgeries later, I would find love? But it happened."

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.