A horrific case of child sexual abuse has come to light in Pollachi in Coimbatore district where a 16-year-old teenager was abused by as many as nine men. According to reports, the teenager was abused by her 27-year-old neighbour Ammanullah when she went missing from home. Ammanullah is said to have called his friends over to abuse the teenager. The teenager, who eventually managed to escape, informed her grandmother about the incident. Following this, they lodged a complaint.
According to the Times of India, the teenager has been sexually assaulted by the men in different places over the past two years.
The accused men have been booked under Section 366(a) (Act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code as well as Section 6 of the POCSO Act.
The other accused have been identified as Bagavathi alias Mohammad Asif (27), Mohammad Rafiq (28), Syed Ibrahim (25), Mohammad Ali (28), Arun Nehru (28), David alias Senthilkumar (30), Irsadh Basha (28) and Mohammad Khan (44). Another accused Prabhu is yet to be nabbed.
A Hindu report states that the teenager, a class X dropout, has been living under the care of her grandmother ever since her mother's death when she was 2-years-old.
In February this year, a horrific sexual assault and extortion racket in Pollachi came to light when a college student complained to the district police that four men— Thirunavukarasu, Sabarirajan (alias Riswandh), Satheesh and Vasanthakumar— forcibly removed her clothes in a car and videographed the act. The survivor alleged that they also snatched her gold chain and forced her to make physical relation with them, and threatened to upload the video on the internet. The probe into the case led the police to a wider network of men who regularly befriend women online, sexually assault and film them to blackmail them later. In March, soon after the issue witnessed protests across the state, the Tamil Nadu government had recommended the transfer of the case to the CBI.