Pollachi sexual harassment case mirrors a Kollywood racy potboiler

Chennai: True to the adage “Bitter end awaits all lawless joys”, the four accused in the Pollachi sexual harassment case have been thrown behind the bars for their acts of commission and omission. For Sabarirajan (25), the man who filmed women in compromising positions, it was all a consequence of hormonal activation, quite common to his age and image.

An engineer by profession, Sabariarajan was fluent in English and comfortable with social media which he put to use to trap women. Beginning with a chat on Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, he would slowly win the confidence of the girls and eventually make sexual advances which he filmed as well, with the consent of girls. It appears that his actions were in tune with his playboy image with no intention whatsoever of harming the girls.

According to the investigating authorities, Sabarirajan’s way of life went awry, in 2012, the day K Thirunavukkarasu chanced upon his mobile phone which contained all the videos and photos. When Sabarirajan refused to part with the videos, Thirunavukkarasu in the company of two other accomplices, N Sathish (29) and T Vasanthakumar (26), cajoled and coerced him into doing it. Subsequently they sought details of the girls to blackmail them into providing sexual favours. When Sabarirajan refused, he was ultimately prevailed upon to part with the contact details of the girls. Thereafter, they began their escapades by threatening the hapless females. Police say that sometime in 2012, they managed to bring one of the girls to a farmhouse of Thirunavakarasu where the three sexually exploited her.

Beyond a point, Sabarairajan parted ways with the three as he was unable to tolerate their conduct. Eventually, he was bought over by the other three with the money they extorted from some of their rich victims. It is pertinent to note that Sabarirajan, during the course of befriending girls, carefully chose rich ones based on their social media profiles. This played to the advantage of his new found friends eventually.

From then on, it became a symbiotic relationship with Sabarirajan playing the cupid’s arrow to trap innocent girls. Apart from his communication skills, Sabarirajan also used the car of Thirunavakarasu and Satish’s retail textile shop to project a rich image. After befriending the females, he would take them to a hotel or resort and get in bed with them. The gang of four made sure the entire act got recorded by either placing a video camera in the room or someone recording it discreetly.

A month later or so, the four would contact the concerned girls individually and demand sexual favours from them. On her refusal they would insist on a lump sum amount which they extorted every two-three months. They would also force their victims to introduce them to new girls whom they would subsequently abuse. After extracting huge amounts from their victims, they also have deleted some of their videos.

“With the help of recovery software, police have managed to recover 67 videos from two mobile phones confiscated from two main culprits. But, as these videos were recovered after lodging the accused in Central Prison, police are finding it difficult to identify all the victims,” sources close to the developments said. So far, probing authorities have managed to identify seven victims across three cities. However, none of them are willing to file an official complaint.

Police are still in the process of counselling the girls trying to convince them to file an official complaint so as to help them slap additional charges on the culprits as the first complaint by the 19-year-old girl alleges just sexual harassment. Police feel multiple charges including rape can be made out if the victims comes forward to file complaints.

But in the aftermath of the police blowing the cover of the first complainant, repeatedly, two victims, who were inclined to file complaints have backtracked.

Meanwhile, in the videos that were leaked in the last one week, about five persons were seen sexually abusing the girls by threatening them. However, the FIR filed by the Coimbatore rural police names only four namely N Sabarirajan  K Thirunavukkarasu, N Sathish and T Vasanthakumar who were booked and arrested under various charges including the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Women Harassment Act.

In the backdrop of the above mentioned developments, it is anybody’s guess as to how long it would take for justice to be served to the victims.