Chennai: At least 22 men including security guards, elevator operator and plumbers at an apartment complex in Purasawalkam here sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl with a hearing disorder for more than seven months, police said on Monday.
The police have arrested 18 men and they have been booked under the sections of Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO).
The perpetrators sedated the Class VII girl with injections, drug-laced soft drinks and a powder that they made her sniff before sexually assaulting her and videographed themselves in the act, an investigating officer said. They blackmailed the child into silence for a prolonged period with the threat of releasing the videos and by menacing her with violence, he said.
The victim was Class 7 student and she recently dictated her ordeal to her sister, who lives in Delhi but was on a visit home. Then the sister informed the mother about the trauma she had been going through.
As per reports, the accused, Ravi would get the girl to the basement as soon as she was dropped by the school bus and used to physically assault her. The police added that since most of the apartments at the building were vacant the accused raped the girl in several other vacant apartments, gym and public washrooms.
The victim’s parents took her to Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital, where the doctors found out that several men had raped her.
Acting on the complaint, the police raided the apartments and found syringes, drugs and condoms which have reportedly been sent for forensic tests.
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