On the 23rd of December, a student was sexually assaulted, filmed, threatened and blackmailed at Anna University. The man who is behind the heinous act has been identified as Gnanasekaran who already has plenty of pending cases registered against him. The Greater Chennai police got hold of him on the 25th of December.
The First Information Report (FIR) regarding the incident was filed at the All Women Police Station Raja Annamalai Puram on 24th December . According to the registered FIR, Gnanasekaran filmed the victim along with her boyfriend on campus and used the footage to blackmail them. He also held the student in illegal custody from 7:45 PM to 8:20 PM, behind the Highway Lab Building and EEE department building.
Gnanasekaran threatened the survivor with three options: facing expulsion from the university if he leaked the footage to the dean and her parents, “spending time” with him, or “spending time” with another unidentified man who had reportedly contacted him before the assault. The survivor’s complaint states that Gnanasekaran received a call from an unknown person to whom he mentioned that he would threaten the girl and leave her. Before leaving, he photographed the student’s college ID card and obtained her father’s contact number from her phone.
Police investigations revealed that Gnanasekaran is a habitual offender with seven pending criminal cases under Indian Penal Code sections 457 (lurking, house-trespass, or house-breaking by night) and 380 (theft in dwelling house). For the current assault, he has been charged under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 63(a) (rape), 64(1) (punishment for rape), and multiple counts of sexual harassment under sections 75(1)(ii) and 75(1)(iii).
A shocking angle too has surfaced that linked the incident with the political arena. It came up that the accused, Gnanasekaran has political connection with DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), the ruling party of Tamil Nadu. The accused pictures with Udhayanidhi Stalin, the deputy Chief Minister and Health Minister of the state, Ma Subramanian came up giving a push to his connections with the party. Tamil Nadu opposition parties BJP and AIADMK have trainned guns at DMK adding that the party is becoming a den for criminals.
It has come to light that the accused in the Sexual Assault of a student at Anna University is a repeat offender and a DMK functionary.
A clear pattern emerges from the number of such cases in the past:
1. A criminal becomes close to the local DMK functionaries and becomes a… pic.twitter.com/PcGbFqILwk
— K.Annamalai (@annamalai_k) December 25, 2024
BJP leader K. Annamalai posted a tweet bashing DMK. He accused the ruling party of the state of developing a pattern of getting criminals into the party and then suppressing their criminal records with political influence and then enabling further crimes.
He wrote, “It has come to light that the accused in the Sexual Assault of a student at Anna University is a repeat offender and a DMK functionary. A clear pattern emerges from the number of such cases in the past: 1. A criminal becomes close to the local DMK functionaries and becomes a DMK member. 2. All the cases registered against him get suppressed, and he gets leeway by not being categorised as a history-sheeter or kept on the watchlist of the local police station. 3. The Police do not investigate the existing cases against him due to pressure from local DMK functionaries & Ministers, which gives him the space to commit further crimes. How long should the people of TN put up with this? Will Thiru @mkstalin ever take any responsibility?”
Annamalai also wrote a letter to the National Commission of Women (NCW) where he accused the Tamil Nadu Police of deliberately leaking the FIR that disclosed the identity of the girl because the accused was from DMK.
