Chennai: Two class IV students sodomised, man held

Chennai: The city police arrested a 20-year-old man on charges of sodomising two class IV students and sexually abused two children at New Washermenpet, on Monday evening.

The suspect identified as Desappan (20), resident of Tsunami Quarters, Tondiarpet, was abusing the children from the neighbourhood for about 3 months. The frequency had gone up since the onset of the summer holidays.
On Saturday, the children complained of hip and rear pain around 3 pm. The kids were taken to a neighbouring hospital where the doctors established that the children were subjected sexual abuse and referred them to the Government Stanley Hospital. Subsequently, the students revealed the sodomy episode with their parents who in turn alerted the cops.

Cops who rushed to the scene took the statement of the boys and their parents and moved the children to the Stanley Hospital. The doctors who examined the children confirmed the sexual abuse and established that there were lacerations in the anus due to the sexual activity. A case under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences(POCSO) Act was booked.

“Desappan had been doing this for more than 3 months. Our child was one among the dozen children he had sodomised. He had lured them with petty cash of '10 or '15. He had been taking them to a public toilet and to an open ground to force them into sex. He had threatened the children with their life to keep the relationship under wraps. He had forced himself on the children after gagging them to avoid attention from passersby”, Raganya (name changed), maternal aunt of one of the children, told DC.

The doctors had demanded that the suspect be screened for any sexually-transmitted-diseases (STD) and those tests will be run on the suspect soon after obtaining the judicial nod. The doctors had also chided the parents for not being watchful about the children.