Behrampur, Nov 03: In a virtual repeat of the Imrana case, a mother of four has been driven out of her village in Murshidabad district by a Muslim panchayat after being allegedly raped by a local man over three months ago.
The panchayat ruled her marriage stood annulled in the wake of the incident and neither could she live with her husband nor could she enter the predominantly Muslim village, about 200 km from Kolkata.
The village council ruled the couple should pay Rs 50,000 if they wished to stay together, a pre-condition which the victim's husband, a daily wage labourer, failed to meet.
The victim, who was raped on July 25 in Katabagan village, filed a case at the police station here on Friday following the intervention of Superintendent of Police Rahul Srivasatava.
The local police had earlier refused to register a case. In her complaint, the woman accused Mansoor Ali, a local tough, of raping her in front of her four children.
"I want to keep my wife as it is not her fault, but people are not allowing me to keep her. Who will look after our four children?" her husband told reporters here.
His family was opposing his wife's stay in the house after the incident and the matter was taken up by the panchayat of the village.
She was also not allowed to stay at her father's house by her stepmother, and this left her virtually homeless.
The panchayat also imposed a fine of Rs 18,000 on the rapist which he did not pay.
Imrana, whose father-in-law was recently convicted by a court in Uttar Pradesh for raping her, was also asked by a Muslim panchayat to treat her husband as a son following the crime.
Bureau Report