New Delhi: In a fresh development, the CBI on Friday filed its first chargesheet against five accused in the Pollachi sexual assault case, where a woman was allegedly assaulted in a car by four men who had stolen her chain and then taken an obscene video, threatening to make it public.
The Central Bureau of Investigation has charged the accused with sexual assault and rape, under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women Act (2002).
The agency has accused Sabarirajan (26), K Thirunavukkarasu (28), M Sathish (29), T Vasanthakumar (24), and R Manivannan of working as part of an organised criminal gang with the common intention to sexually assault the victim.
The probe agency added that one person would record video of the assault and then extort the victim by threatening to release the footage on social media.
The five accused, all from Pollachi have also been charged under the relevant sections of the IT Act, which refer to recording private video of a person without consent and distributing or publishing obscene videos.
The CBI spokesperson said that initial investigation in the case had revealed that all five were close friends and were in touch with each other.
The CBI has taken swift action in the case, with the chargesheet coming within a month of registering the FIR.
The probe agency had registered two FIRs in the case on April 26 based on a request by the Tamil Nadu
government for the CBI to investigate the case in Pollachi, Coimbatore.
The first FIR was based on a statement by the only complainant in the case, where she details the sequence of events leading to the assault and later the extortion. The second FIR, however, is based on the victim's brother's complaint of facing harassment from the accused.