COIMBATORE: Coimbatore District (Rural) police arrested a 62-year-old man, who was running a grocery shop in a village near Pollachi, for allegedly molesting minor girls in the locality. As many as 15 minor girls from a government school near Anaimalai revealed that he had sexually abused them during a awareness programme under ‘Project Pallikkoodam’ on Friday.
The headmistress of the school had conducted an awareness programme with the female students from the school and asked them if they had faced any harassment, when 15 students aged between 9 and 13 years revealed about the suspect to her, following which she lodged a complaint with the Anaimalai police and the shopkeeper was arrested under POCSO Act.
Sources said that the victims were from the same locality where the suspect was running the shop and he used to molest the girls whenever they visited the shop. He also threatened the victims not to reveal it to anyone.
The police team attached to All-Women Police Station in Pollachi on Saturday registered a case and recorded the victim’s statements. Following this, they arrested the suspect on Sunday. “The district child welfare committee is planning to give counselling to the victims in the coming days,” the sources added.
Police superintendent V Badrinarayanan said, “It was the seventh case registered under the POCSO Act in the last two and a half months after initiating the ‘Project Pallikkoodam’. We hope this programme gives courage and makes students report such incidents directly to the authorities.”