Seven students of a private college in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu have been booked under the POCSO Act for allegedly raping a minor girl who was befriended by one of the accused through a social media application, police said on Tuesday.

According to police, the 17-year-girl, hailing from Ukkadam area of Coimbatore city, had gone to meet her boyfriend on being invited to his room, where he was staying with his college mates in the suburban area. When she failed to return home, her parents filed a missing complaint with the police.

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With the police launching a search, the girl was let off by the youths and on reaching her home she narrated the ordeal to her parents. Then, upon questioning by the police, she named her boyfriend and six of his room-mates of sexually assaulting her. All the seven students were arrested and sent to judicial remand. Further investigation is on, police added.

The incident, coming close on the heels of the rape of a girl student inside the campus of the prestigious Anna University in Chennai, has given a handle to the opposition beat the DMK government of MK Stalin. Expressing shock, BJP state president K Annamalai blamed the state government’s inability to provide security to women.

“For a Nirbaya, the whole country was shocked. But, in Tamil Nadu, every day girl students, women and children as well as female government officers are insecure with no protection. The gang rape of girls clearly shows that because of the flow of drugs, the youth addicted to substance are psychologically turning like animals. The DMK government has not moved its finger to control the menace of drugs and ensure protection of women,” read his post on ‘X’.

Leader of the Opposition and AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, condemning the DMK government for ‘turning the state into a place unsafe even for children’, in a social media post asked “What is there in the Chief Minister saying that the culprits have been arrested? What steps has he taken to prevent such atrocities?” Demanding stern action against arrested accused, he asked who has to be held accountable for the Coimbatore gang rape and squarely blamed the Stalin government for abandoning wonmen’s safety but only engaged in empty propaganda of self glrification.