Pollachi sexual assault case: All 9 accused found guilty by Coimbatore court | Latest News India

A local court in Coimbatore on Tuesday held all nine accused guilty in the 2019 Pollachi sexual assault case after multiple women testified against the men during the probe in which investigating agencies spoke to 50 witnesses.

Coimbatore Women’s Court judge Nandini Devi will pronounce the quantum of sentence at noon.

The nine accused are N Rishwanth alias Sabarirajan (26), K Thirunavukkarasu (28), N Sathish (30), T Vasanthakumar (25), R Manivannan alias Mani (31), K Arulanantham (34), P Babu alias ‘Bike’ Babu (27), Haronimus Paul (29), and M Arunkumar (29).

The accused have been charged with criminal conspiracy, sexual harassment, rape, gang rape, and extortion, including blackmail, in the series of incidents between 2016 and 2018. The victims were mostly college girls, and the incident came to light after a student lodged a police complaint.

While the local police initially probed the matter, it was later transferred to CB-CID. The case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2019.

Investigating teams spoke to 50 witnesses, and more than 240 documents were presented before the court. The charges were framed against them in November 2021.

The case became a flashpoint during the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly elections as the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) lost the polls to chief minister MK Stalin’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).