PhD scholar sentenced to life in jail for raping minor girl

A PhD scholar of Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan, Md. Safikul Islam, was today sentenced to life imprisonment for raping and blackmailing a minor girl student of Visva Bhrati Higher Secondary School.
The sentence was pronounced by Additional District and Session Judge, Birbhum, Mahananda Das.
The case was tried in a special court assigned to hear cases under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
Syed Samidul Alam, government lawyer, said that the girl from Dhaka in Bangladesh, a student of class XII, was taken to the rented house of the PhD scholar, who hailed from Bangladesh's Sirajganj district and was the local guardian of the girl, at Gurupalli locality in Santiniketan on August 5, 2014 and raped.

Islam then recorded some photographs of her in various compromising positions with his mobile phone and blackmailed her not to make the crime public, otherwise the photographs would be circulated.
For consecutive four months, the man sexually abused the girl in his rented house. Eventually, she gathered courage to lodge a complaint with the Santiniketan police station on December 5, 2014.

Safikul was slapped with charges under Section 4 of POCSO Act.
In addition to life in jail, Safikul was ordered to pay a fine of Rs 10,000, Alam said.
West Bengal government has been ordered by the court to pay the girl Rs five lakh as compensation.