Cornered by the opposition in the Assembly over the sexual assault of a girl student by an intruder at the prestigious Anna University in the city last month, Chief Minister MK Stalin on Wednesday vehemently denied that the accused, who has been arrested, was a member of the ruling DMK but was only a party sympathiser.
Responding to a call attention motion, moved by the opposition and some of the allies of the DMK, the Chief Minister, also president of the DMK, admitted that the accused, Gnanasekaran (37), was a only sympathiser of the party but not a member.
“He might have taken photographs with minister and politicians which is not a crime, he said and countered the opposition charge that the government was trying to shield the culprits, saying “There will be no leniency, whoever it might be, even if they are from the DMK, the police will take stringent action against the accused. Within 60 days, the chargesheet will be filed to get maximum punishment for the accused,” he assured the House.
The 19-year-old girl student was sexually assaulted on the night of December 23 when she was with her boyfriend on the campus, when the accused thrashed the boy and committed the crime. The accused was running a roadside biriyani shop near the university and his wife is a sanitation worker on the campus.
Denying that there was laxity on the part of the police, the Chief Minister explained that the accused was arrested the very next day after the complaint was filed and he has been detained under the Goondas Act. “Also, it is not factually true that there were not adequate CCTV cameras in the varsity campus. The accused was apprehended based on CCTV footages,” he added. Rubbishing the criticism that the FIR was leaked deliberately by the police, Stalin made it clear that it was a technical glitch on the part of National Informatics Centre (NIC), which has also admitted to it. On being alerted by the state police, the NIC had rectified the issue.
On the claim by the opposition that the accused was in a call with one ‘Sir’ prior to committing the offence and the AIADMK members coming to the House with black badges for the third day in succession, Stalin taunted them as ‘Sirs of Pollachi sexual scandal’, which rocked the state during the previous AIADMK government of Edappadi Palanisamy.
“If you have proof, submit them to the High Court-appointed Special Investigation Team probing the case. Unlike the present DMK government which had taken swift action in the Anna university case, arrests were made in the Pollachi scandal only after the CBI took over the case,” he reminded them and rejected the opposition protests over the issue as a mere tool of political propaganda.