Coimbatore: Dalits demand fair probe into rape case

Coimbatore: Demanding the immediate arrest of all the accused in the recent ghastly gang-rape and murder of a Sulur-based Dalit girl near Dindigul, a group of angry Dalits from Sulur, trooped to the district collectorate and staged a protest on Friday. While two accused have been arrested, the third accused is yet to be nabbed by the Dindigul police.

The 18-year-old girl Parimala, a resident of Kallapalayam in Pappampatti near Sulur, was a second year polytechnic student and was also attending a computer class in the evenings at a private institute. She fell in love with a 20-year-old youth, Padmanabham, who was a welder in the area.

Padmanabhan and his two friends lured her to a trip to Dindigul on May 2 and whisked her away to a desolate place, Amaithi Salai, and gang raped
her after consuming liquor. Then, they strangled her  with   her ‘chudidhar shawl’ and threw her into a 200-feet ravine and fled the scene. Police recovered the body and launched a hunt for the absconders.

Dindigul police nabbed the lover Padmanaban on May 6, while another
accused, Moorthy, 17, surrendered at Singanallur police station with
the help of an advocate on May 7.

Meanwhile, a group of 40 Dalits thronged the   collectorate demanding the arrest of the third accused in the case, Jaya Pandian. They threatened to boycott the elections if a fair probe was not conducted.

Immediately, the district collector Archana Patnaik contacted the Dindigul SP and collector and requested him to take steps to arrest the  third accused.

Speaking to the DC, a coordinator of SC/ST forum said, “The girl’s
parents lodged a missing complaint at Sulur police station on May 2,
but they did not take up the complaint. So her parents filed a complaint at Singanallur police station on May 4. A police official in Singanallur, who heard an announcement through the police wireless system regarding an unclaimed body found near a hill area that matched Parimala’s parents’ description of her, alerted them about it and asked them to rush to Dindigul.”

Meanwhile, Dindigul police had completed post-mortem of the body and had registered it as unclaimed body before Parimala alias Salomi’s parents could reach.

According to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, (amended in 2015), the family of the victim should be given a redressal of Rs 7.5 lakh if the victim was an earning member of the family or Rs 3.5 lakh for non-earning member. The SC \ST Commission is yet to launch a probe into the gang rape and murder, he said.