Mumbai: Two weeks after the rape of a 72-year-old nun during an attack at a convent school in West Bengal, one suspect has been arrested in Mumbai.
A man named Mohammad Sikandar Shaikh was arrested this morning from Nagpada in south Mumbai. The police reportedly tracked him down through his cellphone details. He has been taken to Kolkata.
This is the first arrest made by the Bengal police in a case that outraged the nation and led to street protests in many cities.
The nun was assaulted when a group of at least six men attacked a church and a convent school at Ranaghat, about 100 km from Kolkata, on March 14. CCTV footage has captured at least four faces.
The nun was raped by a man who was part of the group that vandalized the school and damaged a bust of Jesus Christ in a chapel before breaking into the nuns’ quarters.
The attackers locked all the nuns in a room, and dragged one of them, who was then raped. They later robbed about Rs. 2 lakh from the office cupboard and some valuables from the chapel.
In hospital, the nun told those who met her that she had forgiven the man who raped her. “She forgives her oppressors. She is praying for everyone, including the oppressors,” said Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.