Delivering the judgment, judge R Nandhini Devi convicted and sentenced the nine found guilty, making it clear that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which took over the investigation into the case, had proved the charges against the accused beyond any reasonable doubt.
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Pronouncing all the nine men guilty in the horrific 2019 Pollachi rape and extortion racket which rattled the entire state, the Coimbatore Mahila court on Tuesday sentenced the convicts to life imprisonment till their death.
Delivering the judgment, judge R Nandhini Devi convicted and sentenced the nine found guilty, making it clear that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which took over the investigation into the case, had proved the charges against the accused beyond any reasonable doubt.
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The judge directed the District Legal Services Authority to extend a compensation of Rs 85 lakh to the victims and imposed a penalty ranging from Rs 35,000 to 40,000 on all the nine convicts.
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The CBI, arguing that it was a premeditated heinous crime targeting vulnerable women of Pollachi town, had pressed for maximum punishment for the guilty so that it acted as a deterrent while the defence pleaded for lenience since they had no prior criminal antecedents.
The nine sentenced to life are: N Sabarirajan @ Rishwanth (32), K Thirunavukkarasu (34), M Sathish (33), T Vasanthakumar (30), R Mani @ Manivannan (32), P Babu (33), T Haronimus Paul (32), K Arunachalam (39) and M Arunkumar (33). The CBI had arraigned them on multiple charges, including criminal conspiracy, sexual harassment, rape, gang-rape and repeated rape of the same woman, blackmailing the victims for sexual favours.
A total of eight women have given statements against the gang including a 19-year-old, who was the first complainant. The sexual assault and rape cum extortion of these women took place between 2016 and 2018. Lodged in the Salem Central Prison, all the nine men were escorted to the court earlier in the morning.
It was when a 19-year-old college student gathered courage and lodged a police complaint in February 2019, the scandal came to light. Lured by Rishwanth, who became a friend through social media, she had come to meet him at a bus stand from where she was abducted in a car to a secluded place. She was gang-raped by four men which was also filmed to blackmail her. Honeytrap is the modus operandi of Rishwanth. The case gained momentum after some videos of the gangrape and torture of the victims surfaced online.
Talking to the media after the verdict was delivered, Public Prosecutor Surendar said besides the testimonies of the victims, the prosecution had retrieved deleted videos and through forensic tests ascertained the location and timing of their recording. All the 48 witnesses were examined and none of them turned hostile.
The CBI chargesheet, filed in 2019, had identified 12 victims but only eight of them testified in the court. The investigation by the premier agency traced the multiple videos to the farm house of Thirunavukkarasu at Chinnappapalayam on the outskirts of Pollachi.
The scandal broke out when the AIADMK government of Edappadi K Palaniswami was in office and one of the convicts, Arulanantham, a party functionary was expelled following his arrest.
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