Fifth accused in Pollachi case surrenders, sent to judicial custody

CHENNAI: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Monday arrested one more accused in the Pollachi sexual assault case in Tamil Nadu and sent him to judicial custody till May 20.

The development comes weeks after the CBI took over the probe into the alleged sexual assault case in Pollachi town of Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district. The accused, Manivannan alias Mani, surrendered before the federal agency here on Monday, CBI officials said.

This is the fifth arrest in the case. The four main accused — Sabarirajan, Sathish, Thirunavukkarasu and Vasanthakumar — are currently under judicial custody.

The four men were arrested in February this year for allegedly sexually harassing a 19-year-old college student, filming the act and blackmailing her.

The case had attracted national attention when it was revealed that the accused might have assaulted over 50 women.

“Manivannan had allegedly attacked a brother of one of the victims for lodging a police complaint. After the CBI took over the case from the Crime Branch CID wing of Tamil Nadu on April 27, we were in search of Manivannan. Therefore, he surrendered before us,” persons familiar with the development said.

While initially the state police’s crime branch was probing the case, it was later transferred to the CBI.

The CBI had on April 27 registered two first information reports in the case, one pertaining to the sexual harassment of the complainant and another related to the assault on her brother.

Both FIRS were against different sets of the accused.

FOUR MEN WERE ARRESTED IN FEBRUARY FOR ALLEGEDLY SEXUALLY HARASSING A COLLEGE STUDENT AND BLACKMAILING HER