Chennai: In an extremely perturbing incident of juvenile crime, four young boys and an 18-year-old teenager repeatedly raped two schoolgirls and a schoolboy, aged between 10 and 12, over last few months Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district.
After the authorities were alerted by a phone call to the child helpline, four of the offenders were taken into custody on Friday. One of the minors is still on the run.
The Times of India learnt from police sources that the 18-year-old and the four school dropouts got friendly with the kids and after some days, raped them in a remote area close to their village in Pollachi.
That was the beginning, with the culprits threatening to beat up the children from poor families if they didn’t comply. They also blackmailed the children with obscene videos they had recorded.
It was only after the minor boy told a relative about the sexual assaults that the parents of the three children came to know about it on Friday.
The parents, wary of societal taboo, were unwilling to report the incident to police. Some villagers then contacted Child Helpline (1098) to bring the crime to light.
The Pollachi All Women Police registered a case against the four boys and the youth under various sections of the POCSO Act.
