Behrampore, Nov. 7: The man who raped Manoara Bibi, branded “characterless” and exiled by village elders in Bengal’s Murshidabad district, has been arrested.

Mansoor Mullick, 35, was picked up last night while trying to sneak into a neighbour’s hut at Katabagan.

He was remanded in a fortnight’s jail custody today.

On July 29, a shalishi meeting had asked Manoara (name changed) to get a divorce from her husband and marry Mullick. After he refused to marry her, the elders asked him to give her Rs 18,000, but only after she had got the divorce.

Mansoor, a father of two sons and a daughter aged between 4 and 10, refused to obey this order as well.

The villagers then called Manoara, 22, a mother of four, a woman of loose morals and asked her to leave the village.

When Manoara and her husband Muluk told the self-proclaimed judges that they wanted to stay together, the couple was told to pay Rs 50,000 or leave the village, about 210 km from Calcutta.

Police refused to register Manoara’s complaint. A probe began only after she met additional superintendent Shankar Chakraborty last week.

Mansoor fled as the investigation started.

“Some justice at last,” Manoara said this evening.