AIADMK protests against sexual crimes in TN

Chennai, Feb 18 (PTI) The opposition AIADMK students’ wing members staged a massive protest here on Tuesday demanding the ruling DMK dispensation to end the sexual crimes on girl students and women in Tamil Nadu.

The ‘attention grabbing’ protest was also to wake up the DMK government from the ‘slumber’ and take stringent action on the perpetrators, AIADMK national spokesman Kovai Sathiyan said.

He criticised the state government over the issue and said even the women in the state police force were not safe. “Recently, a senior police official was suspended for alleged sexual harassment of a woman police constable," Sathiyan told reporters.

He alleged that the school education institutions in Tamil Nadu were turning into a ‘hub of sexual molestation exploitation.’ “It has indeed turned out to be the hub. In one village, a Maths teacher can molest 43 children. Look at the plight in the state. About 69 cases have been registered in the last one month. Only 40 per cent people come forward to file a case, the remaining 60 per cent don't know where to go, how to take it forward. The government is in a denial mode and long deep slumber and sleep,” Sathiyan alleged.

The party’s student wing secretary Singai Ramachandran, who led the protest, claimed that 63 school and college going girl students were molested in the last hundred days.

“Over the last couple of years, the number of sexual abuse incidents involving them has increased by about 40-50 percent. The DMK government is not taking any action on the issue,” Ramachandran claimed.

The AIADMK members clad in black shirts and some blindfolded raised slogans denouncing the state government and demanding justice to the victims. PTI