Crackdown on illegal gutka sale leads to serial child rapist who filmed his victims

CHENNAI: What started as a crackdown on a shopkeeper for selling a banned product, chewing tobacco (gutka) in Chennai, and an examination of his phone to trace his source of supply took a horrific turn after the police discovered that he was a serial rapist of minors, and had actually saved video clips of the assaults conducted over the past seven years.

In all, police have discovered that he was involved in five rapes; worse, in two cases, the mothers of the girls were complicit in the rapes.

By Monday, the five girls, aged 4, 9, 11, 13 and 15 were rescued and sent to a governmentrun home for children.

The accused, A Perumal and mothers of two of the girls who connived with him have been jailed under sections of Pocso Act, 2012, and Section 376 (rape) of the IPC and Information

Technology Act.

On Saturday, the police received a tip-off that Perumal was selling gutka. A raid turned up 30 packets of the banned product. But the police wanted to also apprehend the dealer supplying to him but he resisted handing over his phone.

“We grew suspicious and thought the phone had details of a godown where gutka is stacked,” said a police officer involved in the raid. The police eventually seized two mobile phones.

That’s when the bigger crime began to unravel.

“My head was spinning,” the officer said. “There were so many videos — some he had recorded with these five girls and a lot he had downloaded from the internet.”

Police said that the two mothers arrested are sisters who are also seen in the videos engaging in sexual acts with the 48-year-old man.