A Tirunelveli court has awarded four death sentences to a Christian preacher for sexually assaulting four minor girls, with the court terming the offences among the rarest of rare.
The Special Court for cases under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act found S Abraham guilty of sexually assaulting four girls in Tirunelveli district. The court also ordered the Tamil Nadu government to pay Rs 10 lakh each as compensation to the four survivors.
Special Court judge K Suresh Kumar awarded four individual death sentences in each case to Abraham on Thursday, August 20. He also imposed a fine of Rs 52,000.
While sentencing Abraham, the court observed that the offences were extremely grave and involved sexual assault against four minor children. The judge also noted that the accused had preyed on children whom he was expected to guide and had shown no genuine remorse.
According to the prosecution, Abraham, who was reported to be 47 years old, was running a prayer hall at Mela Ilanthaikulam near Thevarkulam in Tirunelveli district. He allegedly targeted the girls while conducting moral science, Bible and music classes during their vacation.
The abuse came to light in 2022 after one of the girls, then eight years old, complained of pain in her private parts. Her mother took her to a hospital, where she learnt that the child had been sexually assaulted.
Following the disclosure, three other girls from the same extended family also told their mothers that Abraham had sexually assaulted them. The three girls were aged between 11 and 12, according to the police.
The prosecution said Abraham had taken the children to isolated places on the pretext of teaching them Bible and music. Police also said he had threatened the children with harm if they told anyone about the assaults.
Speaking to Times of India, Tirunelveli Superintendent of Police Vishwesh Balasubramaniam Shastri said the assaults allegedly began during the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 and continued until the abuse was disclosed in 2022.
The girls' parents subsequently approached the police, following which a case was registered by the Tirunelveli Rural All Women Police Station. Abraham was arrested on July 5, 2022, and a charge sheet was later filed.
The investigation was monitored by Additional Superintendent of Police K Shanmugham. Police said the case was taken up under a ‘case officer’ system introduced in Tirunelveli in 2026 to speed up the investigation and trial of pending POCSO cases.
Under the system, designated teams were assigned individual cases, and their progress was reviewed regularly. The team headed by Shanmugham was assigned the case against Abraham, with police saying the investigation and trial were completed within six months.