An Imam of a mosque has been arrested for the attempted rape of an eight-year-old girl in Sherpur's Nalitabari. Five others, including a local Union Parishad (UP) chairman, were also arrested after the victim's mother accused them in a case. The victim's family said the grade-II student went to local Mouakura mosque for learning Arabic on Tuesday morning. Her teacher, and also the mosque's Imam Azizul Haque, told other students to leave as it was raining and took the girl to his room where he tried to rape her, Nalitabari police's Officer-in-Charge Sarowar Hossain said. He let the girl go after she screamed for help but not before he bit various parts of her body. When the victim went to attend classes at an NGO-run school the next morning, one of the female teachers noticed the bite marks. The girl told her teacher what had happened the day before. Angry locals kept the Imam confined in the mosque from noon to the evening. Locals then fined the Imam Tk25,000 and fired him from his job at an arbitration attended, among others, by local UP Chairman Yunus Ali Dewan. Police arrested Azizul from his village home after the victim's mother filed a case at Nalitabari police station accusing several men. OC Sarowar said they arrested the local UP chairman, UP members Shahjahan Mia and Azahar Ali, mosque management committee member Ismail Hossain and villager Phool Mahmud. They were sent to Sherpur police station the same night. UP member Suruj Ali, another accused in the case, is on the run.This story was originally published in Bangla Tribune