Kolkata, Mar 7: In a landmark judgement on the eve of International Women's Day - celebrated on March 8 annually - a court in Bengal's East Midnapore district sentenced a man to five years of imprisonment in 'revenge porn' case.

This is the first conviction secured by the Bengal CID in the series of revenge porn cases registered with the cyber crime cell.

Revenge porn refers to those criminal cases where the accused uploads the nude images of the victim - mostly women - on the internet to extort them.

The court convicted Aminesh Bakshi, 23, for uploading illicit images of his former girlfriend on porn websites.

The victim, 20, had broken ties with Bakshi last year, after he had accessed nude images of the girl from her cell phone, which she had herself shot. Bakshi began blackmailing her using the images.

After the relationship was ended by the girl, he uploaded the images on porn websites to humiliate her. To ensure the images got noticed, the convict used to post them with name of the victim and her father.

After the victim's brother received the circulating images on his cell phone nearly seven months ago, she decided to end her life. However, her father not only prevented her from committing suicide, but also encouraged her to approach the police, a CID officer was reported as saying.

Bivas Chatterjee, special public prosecutor for CID, said the case was crucial for him as the girl went through unprecedented hardship. "The girl should be saluted for her courage. Despite all odds, she pursued the legal battle," he told reporters, adding that what she went through was nothing less than "virtual rape".

The prosecution had presented 118-page written argument in the court, along with 200 document exhibits and 79 material exhibits. The victim also had to appear before the bench for cross-examination by the defence counsel.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 07, 2018 09:20 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).