A mother of four has been driven out of her village in Murshidabad district by a Muslim panchayat after being allegedly raped by a local man three months ago.

The panchayat ruled that her marriage stood annulled in the wake of the incident and that she could neither live with her husband nor enter the predominantly Muslim village, which is about 200 km from Kolkata.

The village council ruled that the couple should pay Rs 50,000 if they wished to stay together, a condition which the victim's husband, a daily wage labourer, failed to meet.

The victim, who was raped on July 25 in Katabagan village, filed a case at the police station in Behrampur on Friday following the intervention of Superintendent of Police Rahul Srivasatava.

The local police had earlier refused to register a case.

In her complaint, the woman accused Mansoor Ali, a local thug, of raping her in front of her four children.

"I want to keep my wife as it is not her fault, but people are not allowing me to keep her. Who will look after our four children?" her husband added.

His family was opposing his wife's stay in the house after the incident and the matter was taken up by the panchayat of the village.

Also, her stepmother prevented her from entering her father's house.

The panchayat also imposed a fine of Rs 18,000 on the rapist. He did not pay the fine.