Gurap home shut after rape arrest

GURAP: Two days after the owner of Bhastara Christian Centre in Hooghly’s Gurap was arrested on charges of raping a 16-year-old inmate, on Friday the state social welfare department and Hooghly district administration shifted the other 18 inmates and ordered closure of the home.
A team led by OC Gurap Sangram Chowdhury visited the home on Friday and told arrested owner Simson Islam’s wife Santa that the 18 inmates would have to be shifted to state-run homes and the centre itself be closed on grounds of irregularities in its running.
The team collected the inmates’ books, documents and beddings and took some inmates to a government home in Kamarkundu and the rest to another state home in Chandernagore.
Hooghly administration’s SDO Sadar Sudip Sarkar said, “Our investigation shows that the home’s license was not in order. We are closing the home for now.”
Chowdhury said the owner had confessed to raping the 16-year-old inmate on the day he was arrested.