DMK youth wing functionary, Hariharan and his friends sexually abused her several times over a year, threatened to share the video on social media and continued to exploit the girl sexually by blackmailing her.
Tamil Nadu is unsafe for women as more and more sexual assaults on girls of all ages in the name of love, blackmailing and love jihad are on an upward graph. In yet another heart-wrenching incident, a 22- year-old Dalit woman from Virudhunagar district was repeatedly raped for months by eight people, including two DMK workers and four juveniles.
According to reports, Hariharan is a local DMK youth wing functionary who lured the 22-year-old woman, reportedly a Christian Dalit (Pallar), into a relationship and took her to a secluded place, where he forced her to have sex with him. He filmed the same and circulated it among his friends. He and his friends reportedly threatened to share the video on social media and continued to exploit the girl sexually by blackmailing her. They had sexually abused her several times over a year. A case has been registered on charges of rape under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against all eight people.
Police have arrested Junaith Ahamed (27), Hariharan (27), Praveen (21), Madasamy (37) and four other minor boys studying in Classes 10, 11 and 12. While Hariharan, Junaith Ahamed, Praveen and Madasamy were produced before the Special Court and remanded in judicial custody, the four minor boys were produced before a magistrate and sent to a juvenile correction home.
TN BJP chief, Annamalai, said that he was shocked and saddened to learn about the blackmail and gang-rape incident in Virudhunagar involving a 22-year-old woman, minor boys and DMK youth wing cadres. He has expressed that the overall policing under DMK did not inspire confidence among the common people. TN BJP spokesperson SG Surya has questioned the silence of journalists who are treading lightly on the incident.
While DMK MP Kanimozhi has tweeted condemning the incident, AIADMK spokesperson Kovai Sathyan has questioned why she has not named the accused, who are functionaries of her party. The TN media, which made a big deal out of the Pollachi sex scam and other incidents in BJP, ruled UP and other states, is silent in the case in which the DMK cadre was involved.
It bears a striking similarity to the case in February 2019 at Pollachi near Coimbatore, where young girls were lured into relationships and sexually exploited by men. The accused found victims on Facebook and forced them to meet in person after befriending them. Later, they were sexually harassed in moving vehicles, hotels or farmhouses and were filmed. CBI had framed a charge against nine accused last November. The issue gained media attention and then opposition leader and DMK chief MK Stalin trained his guns on the AIADMK.
In another incident, a DMK cadre named 50-year-old mason Sivakumar was arrested for sexually abusing a 3-year-old girl. He is a resident of Chinnakarai near Palladam in the Tirupur district. The accused had reportedly taken the girl living in his area into his house, where he sexually abused her. She went home crying and told her parents about the incident. The victim’s parents lodged a complaint at the Palladam Women’s Police Station who arrested the accused, and a case has been filed under the POCSO Act.
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