The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday slammed the mainstream media for not covering the Pollachi sex scandal as they did with the case of Nirbhaya, who was brutally raped by a group of men on the streets of Delhi in 2012.
The HC judges expressed their opinion on the media's role while hearing a case related to the handling of relief material to those affected by the Gaja storm.
The judges said that national media houses do not pay enough attention to grievous crimes in rural areas. They also opined that the mainstream media "deliberately avoids" Tamil Nadu.
When the Nirbhaya rape took place, local and national media houses covered it meticulously, the judges said, recalling how some TV journalists stood outside the hospital for days to cover every bit of the event unfolding.
On 26th February, a gang of four members was arrested for sexually abusing a 19-year-old woman near Pollachi. The police suspect that more than 50 women were abused by these men over a period of seven years. The gang allegedly recorded videos of the sexual acts and used them to silence the victims and extort money.
The Coimbatore district police had on Monday recovered four such videos recorded by the accused. The cops identified another victim by scanning the videos, district SP R Pandiyarajan said. “Unless the woman, who is married, comes forward to lodge a complaint, we can do nothing,” he said.