Date:28/09/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/09/28/stories/2005092816880300.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Teenagers arrested on rape charge

Sandhya Soman

Minor girl molested while alone at home

CHENNAI: : Four teenagers were arrested on charges of raping a 15-year-old girl at Otteri on Tuesday.

The Secretariat Colony Police, led by Inspector Murugesan, arrested Selvakumar, Mahendran and Karthikeyan(all aged 19)and a 17-year-old boy following a complaint filed by the victim and her relatives on Monday night.

Police said the girl was alone at her slum clearance board tenement flat at Otteri when the four boys from the nearby flats knocked at the door. She opened the door after one of them from the opposite flat talked to her. The youths then got in and molested her.

Broken home

The girl waited for her sister to come home from work till 8 p.m. as their mother was in hospital for the last five months. Their father Manoharan was living separately."Initial medical examination report by doctors at the Kilpauk Medical College says the girl was molested. We are waiting for the results of internal examination and samples sent to the forensic lab to confirm whether the girl was raped," said an investigating officer.

While the minor boy (facing the charge) was shifted to the Government Observation Home for Boys and Girls under the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB), the other three were produced before the 14th Metropolitan Magistrate and remanded to judicial custody.

Vulnerable lot

The incident brings to focus the vulnerability of teenaged girls coming from broken families, especially in the lower income groups.

According to Board member Vidya Shankar, there has been an increase in the number of sexual abuse against minor girls in the last one-and-half years.

"I have known at least 15 cases in and around Chennai involving minor girls running away from home, getting married or getting molested," says Ms.Vidya.

Break-up of the family system prompts many in this `vulnerable' age group to seek emotional refuge outside, she says. For those coming from broken families, there is no institutional support also, especially for children like this teenager who were alone at home and not at any school classroom.

"Such children need thorough counselling so that they can get on with their lives," Ms. Vidya adds.