The Coimbatore City Police have formed three special teams to trace two of the six accused who escaped after allegedly gang-raping a class XI girl .
Coimbatore City Police Commissioner Sumit Sharan told The Hindu on Sunday that the survivor, who had come to a public park with her friend to celebrate her birthday on November 26, had given a statement to the police that the accused filmed the act.
Mr. Sharan said photos or videos of the alleged crime were not found in the mobile phones of the four persons arrested on Saturday, namely T. Rahul, 21, R. Prakash,22, S. Karthikeyan, 28, and S. Narayanamurthy, 30, from Seeranaickenpalayam.
“Three special teams are on the hunt for two more accused - Manikandan of Seeranaickenpalayam and Karthik from Vadavalli. Mobile phones of the two persons will be examined once they are arrested,” he said.
Going by the girl’s statement, that she and her friend were threatened after the alleged gang-rape, the police have included charge under Section 506 (ii) (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code in the First Information Report apart from various provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act including Sections 9(g) (whoever commits gang sexual assault on a child) and 13 (use of child for pornographic purposes).
The gang-rape also put the focus back on the Pollachi sexual abuse case in Coimbatore that had hit headlines earlier this year before the Lok Sabha polls after videos of some girls being forced to strip by certain politically influential persons surfaced. The accused in the case had allegedly sexually assaulted, filmed and blackmailed many women. The CBI is handling the case.
The five accused in the case, K. Thirunavukkarasu, N. Sabarirajan aka Rishwanth, N. Sathish, T. Vasanthakumar and Mani alias Manivannan, were in judicial remand. The CBI had filed a preliminary chargesheet against the accused in May. Provisions of the Goondas Act invoked on Thirunavukkarasu, Sabarirajan, Sathish and Vasanthakumar were quashed by the Madras High Court recently.
