Anna Nagar All Women Police Station (AWPS) inspector Raji and an All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) party worker named Sudhakar have been arrested by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Chennai child sexual assault case from August 2024. The inspector was arrested after being charged with conducting a shoddy investigation and delaying the arrest of the accused, while the AIADMK man was arrested for allegedly shielding the accused.
The 10-year-old survivor was taken to a hospital after she fell sick on August 29, 2024. The parents found out about the rape after the doctors who examined the child told them. The survivor had first named her neighbour Satish, a 30-year-old water can supplier, as the accused.
Anna Nagar AWPS inspector Raji was accused of assaulting the child’s parents when they tried to report the crime at the police station on August 30. A complaint against Satish was accepted by the Anna Nagar All Women’s Police Station (AWPS), and an FIR was filed on the same day. Satish was booked under Sections 5(i), 5(m), and 6 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.
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However, according to the survivor’s mother, the police “interrogated” her daughter after 10 pm on August 30 in the hospital where the child was receiving treatment. The mother had previously told TNM that it was during this “interrogation” that her daughter was allegedly threatened and made to change her statement. She alleged that the police threatened the child that her parents would go to jail and her sibling would be placed in a care home if she named her neighbour Satish as the accused. She added that the child retracted her earlier statement and named a juvenile boy after the threat by the police.
In a grave transgression of legal procedures, the child survivor’s audio statement that identifies her and her FIR details were leaked by the police in September 2024.
The Madras High Court (HC) took suo motu cognisance and heard the case in September. On October 1, the court handed over the investigations to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). However, the Supreme Court (SC) stayed the order and formed a SIT to probe the case.