Chennai: Four decades after the crime, a 51-year-old biological scientist working with the British Columbia State machinery in Canada preferred a complaint on Friday with the city police about the sexual abuse she faced at the hands of her cousin’s husband Lavakumar, who is living here in Shenoy Nagar.
Speaking to reporters after petitioning the commissioner, Purnima Govindarajalu said that she had already reported this incident with the Saanich Police Department in Vancouver Island (B.C), last year. She claimed that her present contention is that her perpetrator relative’s propensities are known to the kith and kin, who are only trying to guard him by not speaking about it.
“And that there are children present in the social circle of the suspect and most of them are impoverished children vulnerable to abuse. The long delay in preferring this complaint is because of the societal pressure exerted on me to remain silent and avoid the stigma associated with making this public. My endeavour is to bring on record the offence of child abuse committed by Lavakumar and to protect vulnerable children from such a person,” her petition read.
The complaint also stated that the abuses took place between 1970 and 1977 and listed four addresses in Chennai as scenes of the crimes. Another cousin of Purnima Govindarajalu, on condition of anonymity, revealed that she too had been sexually abused by Lavakumar when she was a child.
Purnima Govindarajalu, in her petition, claimed that she wanted to present a method for other survivors of childhood sexual abuse to come forward, file complaints and have them heard. "I want to break the silence and personally take away the tacit collusion and social protection that paedophiles have come to count on to enable them to continue their perversion," she stated, in her petition.
She had also recorded her statement with Saanich Police Department and her relative had also recorded his statement supporting the claims made by Purnima Govindarajalu.
