Chennai: In a shocking incident, a ten-year-old girl was allegedly raped and police have arrested three people, including a woman Inspector and an Opposition AIADMK functionary
in connection with the case on Wednesday.
Both of them were remanded in judicial custody till January 21 for intimidating the POCSO case victim.
While the woman Inspector S.Raji was placed under suspension following her arrest on charges of dereliction of duty, the AIADMK functionary Sudhakar was also expelled from the party by General Secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami yesterday evening.
The girl was allegedly raped by an youth Satish, who was already arrested on a complaint from her parents and POCSO case was registered against him
The incident took place st the upmarket Annanagar area in the city a couple of months
back and it came to light after the girl, complained of stomach pain, and her parents
took her to a hospital, where medical tests revealed that she was subjected to rape.
The Inspector of the All Women Police, Anna Nagar, and the AIADMK functionary were
arrested after investigations revealed that they had allegedly beat and intimidated her
parents.
Police said when the parents of the girl went to lodge a formal complaint, Raji reportedly
beat them up and did not conduct a proper inquiry into the incident.
Though, initially, a minor boy was detained by the police on charges of sexual assault
on the minor girl, in the FIR the main accused was named as Sathish, a water can supplier,
who was later arrested and remanded in custody.
Meanwhile, taking suo motu cognisance of the incident, a Division Bench of the Madras
High Court ordered a CBI probe into the incident.
However, on an appeal preferred by the police against the CBI probe, the Supreme Court
constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a Joint Commissioner of Police
and the probe revealed that Sudhakar had given shelter to the accused Sathish and had
also misled the Police Inspector, leading to their arrests.
Meanwhile, when the issue was raised in the State Assembly yesterday, Tamil Nadu
Chief Minister M K Stalin said soon after the incident cases were registered by the police
and a young boy, said to be her relative, was arrested.
He said following complaints from the parents of the victim that the real culprit Satish
was not arrested in the case, the probe was transferred from Annanagar Police to the
Koyambedu Police, which investigated it and arrested Satish also.
At this stage, the Court ordered a CBI probe into it and on an appeal filed by the Police,
the Apex Court said there was no need for it and formed a three-member SIT comprising
three women IPS officers to probe the case and the team arrested Sudhakar and Raji
and remanded them to judicial custody, Mr Stalin said.
