COIMBATORE : Three police officials, including the Coimbatore Superintendent of Police, who were involved in the investigation of the Pollachi sexual abuse have been transferred; they have now been put on compulsory wait. It was under their watch that the name and details of the victim were inadvertently made public.

The order, dated April 1, came from the Home department Additional Chief Secretary Niranjan Mardi. The transfer order has been issued to Coimbatore Superintendent of Police R Pandiarajan, Deputy Superintendent of Police R Jayaraman (Pollachi Sub-Division) and Pollachi East Inspector A Natesan. The latter two had directly investigated the case before it was transferred to the CB-CID. The officials have been kept under vacancy reserve (VR) without any reason being mentioned in the order.

Coimbatore City Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Sujith Kumar has been appointed as the new Superintendent of Police. KG Sivakumar, DSP in District Crime Records Bureau at Nilgiris district, has been appointed as Pollachi DSP. Similarly, R Venkatraman - an inspector in Coimbatore district Naxal special division -- has been posted in the place of Natesan. The transfer orders were issued with the clearance of Election Commission of India (ECI).

Coimbatore district police, who initially investigated the case, revealed details of the lone victim in their press releases. Though police suspected that more women and girls could have been exploited by the gang, they failed to get any new complaint possibly because the victims were concerned about their identity remaining confidential. This led to a huge political and public outcry, demanding transfer of the police officials. 

Pandiarajan came under a lot of criticism after he allegedly slapped a woman protesting outside a TASMAC outlet at Samalapuram in Tirupur district in April 2017. He had been the additional superintendent of police then. Despite this incident, he was promoted as superintendent of Police in July 2018.