CHENNAI: The Special Court for Pocso cases in Tiruvallur sentenced a 35-year-old man to double life imprisonment on Wednesday for the abduction and sexual assault of an eight-year-old girl near Arambakkam railway station in Tiruvallur in July this year. The child was on the way to her grandmother’s house from school on July 12 when the incident took place.
The case had sparked widespread public outrage, which was intensified by the two-week delay in arresting the accused. According to the police, the convict, Kale Biswakarma, a native of Assam’s Dibrugarh district, had been working at a dhaba in Sullurupeta, Andhra Pradesh, for over a decade. Police said he frequently travelled on local trains between Sullurpeta and Chennai for leisure.
On the day of the offence, police said Biswakarma deliberately got down at a secluded stretch near Arambakkam railway station with the intent to commit the crime. He allegedly followed the child as she was walking near the station, abducted her and took her to a nearby mangrove grove. After committing the offence, he fled to Sullurpeta and shifted his workplace to a different locality to evade detection.
The incident was partially captured by a CCTV camera installed at a nearby shop, which emerged as a crucial piece of evidence during the investigation. Police constituted multiple special teams, deploying over 60 officers and personnel to trace the accused. The state government also announced a cash reward of Rs 5 lakh for information.
Initially, the police only had a partial CCTV footage and a verbal description of the suspect provided by the child to trace him. As preliminary investigation suggested the suspect could be from another state, dedicated teams were deployed to areas with a large population from other states and to patrol major railway stations across Tamil Nadu and neighbouring states. After a blurred image of the suspect travelling on a local train originating from Sullurpeta was identified, police digitally reconstructed his image and disseminated it widely through print and visual media platforms.
On July 25, a person matching the suspect’s description was located at Sullurpeta railway station in Andhra Pradesh and was subsequently confirmed as the accused. Following his arrest, all material evidence, including blood-stained clothes of the child, was sent for forensic examination, where biological and DNA analyses conclusively linked him to the crime, the police said. Police said the victim was given required support and an interim compensation of Rs 3 lakh was sanctioned under the Pocso Act to aid her rehabilitation.