Bangaon: An incident smacking of utter regression from Bengal has shamed India again where a rape victim is forced to marry her perpetrator right outside a court of law. The incident took place in Bangaon, just 77 km from the State capital Kolkata.

A man who was arrested on the charge of rape on July 20 this year is a serving police personnel of Indo-Tibetan Border Police in Uttarakhand. Currently residing in Rustampur area, he was arrested by the Gopalnagar Police and subsequently presented in front of the Bangaon divisional court.

The twist in the tale happened more than a month after the arrest when families of both the victim and the accused approached the prosecution witness with a proposal to withdraw the case so that the alleged rapist marries the woman he violated. Shocking and primitive as it may sound, that is exactly what happened.

Samir Das, the prosecution lawyer, said, “Both the families approached me. I agreed only after the accused agreed to marry the victim. An interim bail was issued to him only after he gave it in writing that he will marry her after being released.”

To make things worse and further embarrassing for the victim, they were made to wear new clothes, exchange garlands and sweets, even as onlookers assembled to have a look at this questionable act.

Bengal is a State led by a woman chief minister. Just a day before, Swapna Barman made the country proud by winning the gold in the heptathlon event at the Asian Games. But Bengal is also about that lonely rape survivor who is forced to marry her own violator by her own family and the one of the accused.

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