Patna: Acid was injected into the eyes of a man in Begusarai on Saturday evening in alleged retaliation to him eloping with his employer's wife earlier this month.

Gautam Kumar Choudhary, 30, a resident of Oriya village under Dalsinghsarai police station in Samastipur district who works as a driver, is struggling for life at the government sadar hospital in Begusarai district, around 110km east of Patna.

Sadar hospital superintendent Kanhaiya Kumar Singh told The Telegraph that Choudhary has lost 90 per cent of sight in both his eyes.

Choudhary told the police that Pankaj Singh - his employer Dayaram Singh's brother - called him on Saturday posing as the Teghra police station house officer. The caller told Choudhary to come to the police station to take away Archana Devi, Dayaram's wife who had eloped with Choudhary on February 6 but returned later, because she wanted to live with him.

"I hired a vehicle from my native village and left for Begusarai. But I was kidnapped about 1km from the police station," he said.

Abducted from National Highway 28 near Pipra Chowk, Choudhary was taken to a roadside motel where acid was injected into his eyes with a syringe.

"My cries for help fell on deaf ears. I fainted," Choudhary told the police at Begusarai hospital.

He said the attackers dumped him in a roadside ditch thinking he was dead, but a private vehicle driver spotted him lying in a pool of blood and admitted him to the hospital.

Choudhary has accused Pankaj, Kundan Singh, Manish Singh, Praveen Kumar, Kari Singh, Roshan Singh and a few others of abducting him, assaulting him and injecting acid into his eyes.

Dayaram, an influential farmer in the region, had employed Choudhary to drive his tractor a decade ago. Based on the statement he gave police, Teghra sub-divisional police officer B.K. Singh said over time, Choudhary and Dayaram's wife Archana developed a relationship. On February 6, the duo eloped but 10 days later on February 16, Archana suddenly appeared at Teghra police station to record her statement.

The police took Archana to court where her statement was recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC. Later she returned to her husband's house on the court's directive.

The doctors attending to Choudhary told the investigating officials that he has lost his eyesight due to serious injuries. "He lost his eyesight because acid was injected in both of his eyes, which caused damage to his retina," Singh quoted a doctor as saying.

Dayaram was arrested on Sunday. "Efforts are on to nab the other accused whose names figure in the FIR lodged with Teghra police station," Singh told The Telegraph.