Stalin, Oppn in war of words after judgment

A Coimbatore court on Tuesday convicted and sentenced nine men to life imprisonment until death in the Pollachi sexual assault case, which had sent shockwaves across Tamil Nadu after incidents of gang rape, filming sexual crimes and extorting multiple survivors came to light in 2019.

- Divya Chandrababu

CHENNAI:

The verdict in the case, which had attained political overtones as one of the accused was a political party functionary, saw the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and rival AIADMK hit out at each other over women's safety during their respective rules.

Coimbatore women's court judge R Nandhini Devi, who pronounced the quantum of punishment, ordered an overall compensation of ₹85 lakh to the eight women victims, who testified in the case from Pollachi, a small scenic town about 44 km from Coimbatore.

The nine men were accused of criminal conspiracy, sexual harassment, rape, gang rape, and extortion, in the series of incidents that happened between 2016 and 2018, and came to light a year later.

"They have been convicted on two major offences under sections 376D (gang rape) and 376(2)(n) (repeated rape on the same woman) of the (erstwhile) Indian Penal Code (IPC)," special public prosecutor V Surendra Mohan told reporters after the verdict.

They were given "life imprisonment till death", as sought by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which probed the matter, Mohan added.

Earlier in the day, the nine accused — N Rishwanth alias Sabarirajan (26), K Thirunavukkarasu (28), N Sathish (30), T Vasanthakumar (25), R Manivannan alias Mani (31), K Arulanantham (34), P Babu alias "Bike" Babu (27), Haronimus Paul (29), and M Arunkumar (29) — were brought to the court amid tight security from Salem central prison, where they have been lodged since their arrest in 2019. They had appeared via video link during the trial.

A total of 48 witnesses were examined by the prosecution and none of them turned hostile, Mohan said, adding that over 240 documents, 400 electronic evidence such as forensic-validated videos of the assault were presented before the court.