Coimbatore student sexual assault: Accused arrested, shot in legs after they attempted to escape

Chennai: After a day-long manhunt and examining visuals from nearly 300 CCTV cameras, the Coimbatore Police has arrested three labourers for allegedly abducting and sexually assaulting a college student after thrashing her boyfriend on Sunday night. All three suspects were shot in the legs when they “attempted to escape” after a police team encircled them near Vellakinaru in Coimbatore district at around 11 pm on Monday night.

Seven special teams formed to crack the sexual assault case carefully examined visuals from 300 surveillance cameras across the city and worked on clues that they received from several quarters. The two-wheeler that the trio – all of them have had past criminal record and were working as labourers in the city – rode to the crime spot on Sunday night before abducting the second year management student to a secluded place was another crucial piece of evidence that led to their arrest.

As the case hit national headlines, the AIADMK took to the streets in Coimbatore to protest deteriorating law and order situation in Tamil Nadu and distributed pepper sprays to women as a “self-defence”. Breaking his silence, Chief Minister M K Stalin said no harsh words would be sufficient to condemn these brutal crimes.

“The perpetrators have been identified and arrested. I have instructed the police to file the chargesheet in the case within a month and to ensure that they receive the maximum punishment. Moreover, it is only the progress of women that will end the dominance of such perverted male-dominant mindset,” he added.

The three, identified as Guna, Karuppasamy, and Kaleeswaran from Sivaganga district in southern Tamil Nadu, had dragged the college student and their boyfriend out of the car they were sitting inside on an isolated and unlit stretch on the Brindavan Nagar–SIHS Colony Road near the Coimbatore airport.

After attacking the boyfriend, the trio, who were drunk, forcibly took the girl to a secluded place about a km away and sexually assaulted her. Two of them had come out of prison on bail recently in a theft case. While Karuppasamy and Kaleeswaran are brothers, Guna is their distant relative.

Coimbatore Police Commissioner A Saravana Sundar said a police team reached Vellakinaru at around 11 pm on Monday after ascertaining that the suspects were hiding and asked them to surrender.

“When they tried to escape, we shot in their legs and nabbed them,” the police officer said, adding that one of the suspects tried attacking a policeman. “We examined visuals from over 300 cameras to identify the accused and their movements,” Sundar said.

Based on initial investigation, the police said the trio after buying a bottle of liquor came to the vacant land and saw the girl and her boyfriend inside the car. “They first attacked the boy and took the girl away. We could rescue her only at 4.30 am. She came out of the desolated area after she was left off by the accused,” the police commissioner added.

Since the crime spot didn’t have surveillance cameras, police had to depend on video footages from cameras on Avinashi Road and near the airport to zero-in on the accused.