’Project Pallikkoodam’: Girl informs teacher, two youth held for sexual assault

COIMBATORE:  Coimbatore District (Rural) police arrested two people on Friday and booked a case against a Kerala native for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor girl near KG Chavadi. The incident came to light through the awareness programme-’Project Pallikkoodam’.  

The arrested persons were identified as drivers namely K Gunasekaran (25) and M Vijay (22) from Kumittipathi village near KG Chavadi.

According to police, the 15-year-old victim, a class 10 student who was residing with her mother and sibling, was friends with a 20-year-old youth from the locality. In January, when the girl was speaking on the phone, the suspect Gunasekaran snatched the phone and ran into an isolated place, and she followed him.  There, he forced the girl to undress and photographed her.

Subsequently, he sexually assaulted the girl. A few days later, another suspect Vijay who saw the girl’s photos in Gunasekaran’s phone, forwarded it to his social media group. Seeing this, a Kerala native  tried to sexually assault her on November 8, after luring her with the promise of helping her to erase the photos from social media networks.

Traumatised, the girl narrated her ordeal to her teacher at school two days ago, and she informed police. Police gathered details and registered a case under POCSO Act.

A senior police officer said, “We recently conducted the awareness programme ‘Project Pallikkoodam’ at the school where the victim was studying. On getting hope in the programme, the girl came forward to reveal the harassment on her and it led us to arrest two suspects. We are taking steps to arrest the remaining suspect,” said a senior police officer.