Kolkata class X student raped at ‘gunpoint’ by private tutor

Kolkata, July 10: The Kolkata police arrested a 48 year old Tollygunge tutor on Tuesday after a class-X student of a reputable south Kolkata English-medium school complained of regular sexual abuse and blackmail since November last year.

Rajib Chakraborty initially showed the girl "two bullets" to scare her into submission, threatened to kill her and then raped her repeatedly, the complaint said.

According to TOI report, Rajib later took "intimate photographs" of the girl and threatened her with public shaming, continuing the spiral of threats, blackmail and sexual abuse as he forced her to continue visiting him. "The abuse initially began at the tutor's residence where she went to study but, later, he started visiting the girl's residence when her parents were not around and raped her," special public prosecutor Madhabi Ghosh told a POCSO court when Chakraborty was produced there on Tuesday.

Police said they have recovered a few cartridges from the house of the accused but the gun was yet to be found. The 48-year-old was arrested on Monday night based on a complaint lodged by the student. Rajib has been charged with sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, reported The Telegraph.

The police said Chakraborty had been running a coaching centre over the past few years. He taught mathematics, physics, chemistry and geography to students of classes V to XII.

"The student said the teacher would visit her home to teach her, though on certain days she would turn up at the coaching centre, too, to attend classes," said an officer of the police station where the complaint has been lodged.

The girl's parents have told the police that they were unaware of the incidents till their daughter confided in them on Monday, prompting them to seek police help.

A number of incidents of teachers allegedly sexually harassing their students at school or coaching centre were reported from across the city in recent past.

In December 2017, two teachers of a girls' school in south Kolkata were arrested on the charge of sexually harassing a four-year-old student on the school premises. The police later included the gang-rape charge against the teachers.

Again in December 2017, an employee of a school on the southern fringe had been accused of sexually harassing a three-year-old student on the campus. Custody trial had begun in both cases and the accused are yet to get bail.

An officer involved in the investigation into the complaint lodged by the Class X student said though the gun had not been recovered till Monday, the recovery of cartridges had given credence to the statement of the teenager.

Soon after the student and her parents went to the police station on Monday evening to report the matter, a team of officers left for the coaching centre and detained the accused for interrogation.

He was later arrested at the police station.

"We raided his home based on his statements and seized the bullets," the officer said.

A relative of the accused said he had a strained relationship with his wife. Chakraborty's elderly parents went to the police station and told officers that their son was a victim of conspiracy, reported The Telegraph.

The police is investigating the case.