STATE OF PLAY
Four gang rapes in under three months, with the latest victim being murdered, have turned the spotlight on the need for enhancing safety for women and strengthening law and order in Tamil Nadu. Of greater concern is that the accused targeted the three survivors, who were with their male companions, in public spaces. In another case, a youth stalked a woman, forced his way into her home and allegedly raped her at knifepoint in the heart of Chennai.
The gang rapes in Vellore, Cuddalore, Namakkal and Rameswaram were preceded by a horrific incident of a woman in Virudhunagar being blackmailed and raped by four men and three juveniles over a period of seven months. In Vellore, a woman doctor from Bihar and a male colleague were hoodwinked into taking a ride at night in a share autorickshaw, with the accused pretending to be co-passengers. The two were robbed, the man beaten up and the doctor raped. The traumatised woman left for Bihar and filed an online complaint with the police. While the modus operandi in the Vellore case had traces of the ‘Nirbhaya’ case, the Virudhunagar incident brought back memories of the 2019 Pollachi case in which young women had been blackmailed and abused and which the DMK had made a campaign issue then.
