VILLUPURAM: A special court for Pocso cases in Villupuram on Tuesday convicted 15 men for sexually assaulting two minor girls in Tindivanam. Sessions Judge M Vinodha sentenced the convicts to 20 years imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 32,000 on each.
According to sources, in 2019, the girls aged nine and seven, were left with their maternal grandparents in Tindivanam after their mother remarried and started staying with her second husband and their baby in Puducherry. During one of her usual visits to see the girls, she came to know that the eldest daughter was given chocolates and lured to be sexually assaulted by about 10 men from the village, most of them relatives, for over two years, police said. The issue was brought to the mother’s attention by the girl’s teacher who took her to hospital after she fell sick during class hours.
Doctors at a Tindivanam hospital found bite marks, scars and signs of rape on the nine-year-old’s body. The mother then moved the girls to Puducherry where the young one too fell sick. After diagnosis at JIPMER, both the girls were found with signs of sexual assault, following which the Puducherry Child Welfare Department (CWD) filed a report to Villupuram CWD.
Upon investigation by the director of Villupuram CWD, a case was filed with the then Superintendent S Jeyakumar on July 19, 2019. Later, five more persons were found to have sexually assaulted the children, taking the total number of convicts to 15.
Victims are sisters
The sisters, both minors, were sexually assaulted while staying with their maternal grandparents at a village in Tindivanam by 15 men, including relatives