india

Updated: Feb 23, 2019 14:34 IST

Just four days after West Bengal Police arrested a 16-year-old candidate of the state’s class 10 board exam for raping a 6-year-old, cops on Friday nabbed a man on charges of raping a candidate of the state school board exams.

A 16-year-old girl was raped on Thursday night, the day after she wrote her life science paper that was the last test in the school board examination. The incident happened at Tarakeswar, about 62 km from Kolkata. A court in Chandannagar of Hooghly district has sent the accused, who is about 25, to jail custody for 14 days.

“We have registered an FIR under sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. The accused was produced in the court. The victim is undergoing treatment at a hospital at Serampore,” said Sukesh Jain, superintendent of Hooghly district police.

Police officers said the girl was going to her private tutor to inform him how she wrote the exam. On the way, the accused forced her into a dark alley and raped her. Officers said that a medical test confirmed the crime.

After she returned home and narrated the ordeal, her father lodged a complaint at Tarakeswar police station. Police arrested the accused on Friday.

Earlier on February 18, police in Bengal’s industrial town of Durgapur arrested a 16-year-old boy, who was writing his Class 10 board examination, on charges of raping a Class 1 student.

The accused in the Durgapur incident, being a minor, was sent to a welfare home in Burdwan after he was allowed to write his exams under the watchful eyes of a policeman.

The boy allegedly committed the crime on Sunday, a day after he wrote his geography exam and a day before he appeared for the mathematics test.

“We nabbed the boy after a complaint was lodged on Monday. The crime was committed on Sunday. We took the boy to the exam centre according to the court order. The minor victim is undergoing treatment,” Avishek Modi, deputy commissioner of Asansol Durgapur Police had said.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, West Bengal accounted for 11.31 per cent, 10.11 per cent and 9.6 per cent of all the crimes against women in the country in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively.

In 2012, West Bengal accounted for 12.67 per cent of the total cases, making the state the worst offender in the country on this count.