KANCHEEPURAM: Almost nine months after the philandering priest of Kancheepuram Machcheshwara Peruman Temple Devanathan (37) surrendered, an eight-page chargesheet would be handed over to him at the District Sessions Court-II on Friday.
Explaining the inordinate delay in prosecuting the “sex maniac”, DSP K Rajendhran, told Express that One more section 376 (punishment for rape) has been added to sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 447 (criminal trespass), 294b (obscene utterance), and 341 (wrongful assembly). Devanathan had reason to feel a fresh bout of ecstasy as the prosecution failed to file a chargesheet even after 90 days of filing the original FIR at the Siva Kanchi police station.
The joke then doing the rounds in Kancheepuram just like his raunchy video was that the sex maniac was indeed helped by a mysterious hand of god, because two police officers - DSP, CB-CID Vijayaraghavan, and inspector Pattabhiraman of Siva Kanchi police station, were transferred in close succession, and the then DSP Samudrakani had since retired in December last year. The first FIR was filed by Pattabhiraman who was transferred and the case papers were later transferred to Vijayaraghavan. DSP K Rajendhran was entrusted with the case in January itself, and he said, “I kept the papers under lock and key because I do not want to take any more chances.”The case will now be tried in the District Sessions Court as rape charges are slapped and the outcome of the case would more depend upon the behavior of the witnesses including the reporters of a vernacular daily that first broke the story.