The man has been booked under the POCSO Act (Representational)
A man in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district was arrested today for allegedly molesting a Class 5 student. The accused allegedly paid Rs 100 to the girl to buy her silence.
"Rafikul Islam was arrested for calling a Class 5 girl student to his house and allegedly molesting her on Saturday evening," said an officer of Ashok Nagar police station, nine kilometres from Kolkata.
The accused was charged under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, and was produced before a magistrate.
In February, angry parents had protested for hours outside a Kolkata school, alleging that it had failed to act after a Class 2 student alleged sexual assault by a dance teacher. A police officer was injured as the protests lapsed into a free-for-all outside the convent school in south Kolkata.
The accused teacher, 28-year-old Soumen Rana, was arrested under a tough law on sexual crimes against children.
The sexual assault of the child at the Kolkata school had exposed gaps in safety in schools. "All teachers are not bad. But there are some bad people. We have to take action against them. It's a very bad incident," West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said.
With inputs from IANS