Remember the video of Pollachi sexual assault and extortion case accused Thirunavukkarasu and Sabarirajan (alias Riswandh) being confronted by the complainant’s brother and his friends? “All of us – me, Sathish, Nagaraj – beat Sabarirajan up and took it from him,” Thirunavukkarasu says. When asked to clarify what they had taken from Sabari, Thirunavukkarasu says they had taken Sabari’s videos with various women from him.
Now, a new video has surfaced of one of the men named by Thirunavukkarasu – Nagaraj, also known as ‘Bar’ Nagaraj, a man who was fired from the AIADMK for allegedly assaulting the Pollachi case survivor’s brother at Thirunavikkarasu’s behest. And in this video, Nagaraj himself reveals that he has known about Sabarirajan and Thirunavukkarasu’s activities for a while now.
Claiming he hadn’t revealed this incident so far to protect the identity of another one of Sabarirajan’s victims, Nagaraj says, “There’s a guy who is a close friend of mine in my area. One day he came to my house and told me that a man named Sabari, also known as Riswandh, had taken a nude or morphed picture of his sister. I immediately told him that we can go to the police. But he resisted, stating that the family is looking for marriage alliances for his sister and hence they did not want to go to the police. He wanted me to call Sabarirajan and delete the photo from his cell phone.”
“I called Sabari, threatened him, and took his phone. In that phone, there was one photo and two videos. I deleted it right there. I deleted in front of the man (Nagaraj’s friend) – I asked him if the photos were his [sister’s] and deleted it right there. We then gave Sabari his phone back and sent him away,” Nagaraj says.
“The next day, Thirunavukkarasu went to Sabari and said, let’s recover the deleted videos and photo. Another man who was with them then called me and told me that the photo I had deleted the day before was recovered by Thirunavukkarasu and he had copied it onto his phone,” he says.
“I called Thirunavukkarasu and warned him, I told him not to do this unnecessarily and to delete the photo if it was with him. I told him she’s a girl who lives here, it’ll become a big issue. Don’t do this with women. Thirunavukkarasu said that the video was of a very close relative of his, and that’s why he went to Sabari to see it. I then told him to delete it immediately if he had it or the girl’s family will go to the [police] station. He said he didn’t have the video and that issue ended right there,” the sacked AIADMK functionary says.
Referring to the video of Thirunavukkarasu where he names Nagaraj, he says, “If you pay attention to what he said – ‘Me and Nagaraj beat up Sabari and took his videos.’ The reason is – because he wanted to escape, he blamed Sabari.”
Questions for Nagaraj
Nagaraj’s video is a clear attempt to absolve himself of any link to the case, and to portray himself as someone trying to protect another victim of Sabarirajan. Even if Nagaraj’s version of events is taken at face value, there are several questions that he needs to answer.
Nagaraj says he asked his friend to check if the photo and videos he deleted from Sabarirajan’s phone were those of his sister. Does that mean there were other videos and photos of other women that the then-AIADMK functionary ignored?
If Nagaraj was approached by his close friend, how did he not question Thirunavukkarasu’s claim that the girl was his relative?
If this was Nagaraj’s only encounter with Thirunavukkarasu, why would the main accused in the Pollachi sexual assault and extortion case name Nagaraj in the video out of the blue?
Did Nagaraj not feel the need to monitor Sabarirajan’s activities? Is his concern for women limited to only women he knows?