Behrampore, Nov. 3: Manoara Bibi’s husband today pleaded with police to ensure that he could stay with her in his village in Bengal’s Murshidabad district.

Elders at Katabagan, who branded 22-year-old Manoara (name changed) “characterless”, had ordered her to marry the man who raped her. Her husband Muluk Sheikh was told to divorce his wife, though he wanted to live with her.

Deputy superintendent of police Sahabul Hossain said: “Both Muluk Sheikh and Manoara told me that the villagers who sat in judgement at the shalishi on July 29 were against their living together.”

After the rapist, Mansoor Mullick, refused to marry Manoara, the elders asked him to give her Rs 18,000, but only after she had got the divorce. He refused to obey this order as well. The villagers then called the mother of four a woman of loose morals and asked her to leave the village and return only after being divorced.

When Manoara and Muluk told the self-proclaimed judges that they wanted to stay together, they asked the couple to pay Rs 50,000 or leave the village near Behrampore, 210 km from Calcutta.The money they wanted was beyond small farmer Muluk’s means and the police refused to register Manoara’s complaint.

Additional superintendent Shankar Chakraborty, whom she met yesterday, finally ordered a probe. The investigation began last evening.

Manoara was sent for a medical test today. “We have launched a hunt for the rapist,” said the DSP, Hossain.

The villagers who took part in the shalishi would be questioned. “Holding a shalishi is illegal,” said Chakraborty.

The district administration has started its own probe. “I have asked the BDO to speak to Manoara, Muluk and those who took part in the shalishi,” the Behrampore subdivisional officer said.