Chennai shopkeeper sexually assaults minors with help of their mothers, arrested

The man, identified as Perumal, is accused of sexually assaulting three minors over a period of five months. Two sisters have also been picked by the police, for allegedly allowing Perumal to assault their own daughters in exchange for money.

Dr Patil, who is still in Hamburg, told The Indian Express: “I had been training very hard since January for this race.”

A 48-year-old shopkeeper who was arrested by Chennai police on Saturday for selling gutka was found to be a serial child abuser. The man, identified as Perumal, is accused of sexually assaulting three minors over a period of five months.

Two sisters, aged 28 and 30, have also been picked by the police. They were seen in a couple of videos the police found on Perumal’s phone. The women had allegedly allowed Perumal to assault their own daughters in exchange for money. “He will pay some 1500- 2000 rupees for them,” the police said. Perumal had assaulted one more child who was in the care of these women.

A senior police official told indianexpress.com that the police had raided Perumal’s store on Saturday based on a tip-off about a shop selling gutka. They had seized around 30 packets of gutka.

“When the police accidentally accessed the mobile phone of Perumal to know more details about his dealers, they were shocked to see child pornography. They initially thought those videos were downloaded from the Internet but later it was confirmed that it was Perumal who was involved. During interrogation he confessed that he was involved,” he said.

The officer said the phone has been handed over to the forensic department.

The police said their main focus is now on identifying whether there are more victims in this case as they might be afraid to come out in open and register a complaint against the abuser. “We are also investigating whether they were part of any human trafficking nexus,” the police added.

Based on the complaint from a Child Welfare Committee, Perumal and the two women were booked under POCSO Act, section 376 of the IPC and IT Act and were remanded in judicial custody. Perumal has been lodged in Chengalpet Sub-Jail, while the women are locked in Puzhal.

Janardhan Koushik

Janardhan Koushik is Deputy Copy Editor of indianexpress.com. He is a New Media journalist with over five years of reporting experience in the industry. He has a keen interest in politics, sports, films, and other civic issues. Janardhan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication from SRM Arts and Science College and a PG Diploma in New Media from Asian College of Journalism, one of the top ranked journalism schools in India. He started his career with India Today group as a sub-editor as part of the sports team in 2016. He has also a wide experience as a script-writer having worked for short-films, pilot films as well as a radio jockey cum show producer while contributing for an online Tamil FM. As a multilingual journalist, he actively tracks the latest development in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry utiling his well-established networks to contribute significantly to breaking news stories. He has also worked as a sports analyst for Star Sports. ... Read More

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