Former Viqarunnisa Noon School teacher Parimal gets life in prison for raping student

A Dhaka court has found former Viqarunnisa Noon School and College teacher Parimal Joydhar guilty of raping a student.

In the verdict, Judge Saleh Uddin of Dhaka’s Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-4 ordered rigorous life imprisonment for Joydhar.

He has been also fined by Tk 50,000 or else, he will have to spend another six months in jail.

Joydhar has denied the charges.

He spoke to bdnews24.com briefly while being taken out of the courtroom.

“I’m respectful to the law but what else can I say after the honourable judge has pronounced the verdict?” he said. “I’m innocent, that’s all I can say.”

He was the sole accused in the case and had reportedly confessed to the crime before the court during the trial.

Prosecutor Forkan Mia said the court had ordered that the money be given to the victim.

Defence counsel Mahfuz Mia said they would challenge the verdict in High Court.

Joydhar, hailing from Gopalganj’s Kotaliparha, joined the well-known school’s Bashundhara campus in 2010 as a Bangla teacher.

When the case was lodged in July 2011, the victim’s father, besides accusing Joydhar of sexual abuse, also claimed that the campus' then principal Hosne Ara and then chief Lutfar Rahman had tried to cover up the incident.

Police filed the chargesheet in August 2011. On Mar 7, 2012, the court indicted Joydhar, but relieved the two others.

The judge on Wednesday noted that there were “weaknesses” in the investigation.

According to the case details, Joydhar first violated the student on May 28, 2011. He had recorded the whole incident on mobile phone and raped the student again on Jun 17.

The school had sacked him only when the students demonstrated fiercely after the allegations of rape had surfaced.

Police arrested Joydhar in Keraniganj a day after the case was filed.

Twenty-eight witnesses, including the victim, had testified before the court during the trial, the plaintiff’s lawyer Zillur Rahman Talukder said.