21-year-old man arrested in Bengal for raping 100-year-old neighbour

A 21-year-old man has been arrested on charges of raping a woman almost five times his age in West Bengal’s Nadia district, police said on Wednesday.

Abhijit Biswas was produced in a sub-divisional court in Kalyani on Wednesday that sent him to 14 days of judicial custody. The incident took place in Ganga Prasadpur village, about 65 km away from state capital Kolkata.

The son of the victim lodged a complaint of rape against Biswas, a neighbour, at Chakdaha police station.

“The culprit was arrested on Tuesday. Section 376 (rape) of IPC (Indian Penal Code) has been slapped against him,” a senior officer at the police station, who did not wish to be named, said.

The victim also underwent a medical examination on Tuesday.

Biswas entered the room of the woman where she was sleeping alone late on Monday night. Hearing her screams, her relatives ran to the room and caught Biswas red-handed.

“We recently heard about septuagenarians being raped. But that a 100-year-old can be a victim of such crimes is unheard of,” said Ranjit Sur, vice-president of Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, a human rights organisation.

In the second week of July, a 70-year-old woman was gang-raped by three men in Chatri village of East Midnapore district, about 198 km from Kolkata.

West Bengal is one of the worst performing states in terms of crimes against women.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau data, in 2014, 2015 and 2016, the state accounted for 11.31%, 10.11% and 9.6% of all the crime against women in the country.

Bengal accounted for 12.67% of the total cases of rape registered nationally in 2012.