V-B RESEARCH SCHOLAR GETS LIFE FOR RAPE

HT, 3 Jun 2016, Kolkata: BOLPUR: A Birbhum court, on Thursday, awarded life imprisonment to Safiqul Islam, a research scholar at Vis va Bha ra ti University who was convicted of raping a minor. 

The case in question dates back to December 6, 2014. 

The minor was a student of a school affiliated to the varsity. Pronouncing the quantum of sentence, the court also directed the state to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to the victim. 

A resident of Dadpur in the Sirajgunj district of Bangladesh, Islam obtained a student visa to pursue Ph.D studies at the varsity. The minor, too, is a Sirajgunj resident. 

Already in the throes of infamy in the wake of the much-documented Nobel theft and a string of unsavoury incidents, the rape brought yet more shame to the varsity founded on the lofty ideals of Rabindranath Tagore. 

The Ph.D student was pronounced guilty on Wednesday. 

“One can’t lose sight of the gravity of the offence. There was no scope of leniency in awarding punishment,” Mahananda Das, the second additional district sessions judge said while pronouncing the quantum of sentence on Thursday. 

A student of Class 12 at Patha Bhaban, the minor lodged a complaint with the local police claiming she was repeatedly raped and blackmailed over a five-month period. 

The minor was a boarder at Bithika hostel on the Visva Bharati campus. The police arrested the accused on the day she filed the complaint. The sleuths seized two laptops where Islam had saved some pictures of the minor to blackmail her.

TT, Suri, June 1: The former Visva-Bharati research scholar from Bangladesh was today handed the life sentence by a Suri court for raping a Class XII student of a school run by the university in December 2014.

Safiqul Islam was taken to Suri jail immediately after the additional district and sessions judge of Suri, Mahananda Das, pronounced the verdict.

Safiqul has been charged under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act and IPC Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 342 (wrongful restraint), 354b (outrage of modesty with intent to disrobe) and 506 (criminal intimidation). The charges attract a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

Police officers said that on December 6, 2014, the 17-year-old girl, also from Bangladesh, had lodged a complaint with Bolpur police alleging that Safiqul, who was her local guardian, had taken her to his rented flat in Santiniketan, raped her and videographed her without clothes.

He had allegedly threatened to post the videos on social networking sites if she protested further atrocities.