The Chennai police arrested a 28-year-old woman on Thursday under various sections of the POCSO Act, for sexually assaulting a minor boy. The accused, Swetha alias Vasanthi, allegedly showed up with the 16-year-old boy at the Aynavaram police station on Wednesday after which the police conducted an inquiry.
The incident came to light after the boy’s sister filed a missing person complaint with Aynavaram police after he went missing on November 27. According to a report in Times of India, the boy’s sister also noticed that Swetha, who lived nearby, was also missing from the same day. On Wednesday, Swetha appeared at the Aynavaram police station with the boy and confessed that they stayed at her friend’s empty house in Teynampet, Chennai for three days.
The police questioned the boy, a class 8 dropout who worked as a labourer, in the presence of members from the Juvenile Justice Board and NGO volunteers. The boy told the police that the woman had sexually assaulted him several times. The Aynavaram police then took opinion from legal experts and registered a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and arrested her on Thursday. She was remanded to judicial custody and is lodged in Puzhal prison.
Police said that Swetha was married twice – once in 2008 and then in 2015 and has a daughter from her first marriage. Her second husband is a divorcee with two kids, who stayed with her in Kilpauk. She and the boy allegedly met a few months ago in a hospital where they were visiting their relatives. She was allegedly interested in the boy and visited the hospital often which led to her having sexual relations with him. Before she ran away with the boy, she reportedly left her children in the care of her husband, who is working in Bengaluru.