Eleven arrested for sexual assault of 13-year-old, sexual harassment of 12 other minors at 'fake' Tamil Nadu NCC camp

Chennai: Presenting him as an NCC coordinator with the help of ex-CRPF personnel, a 28-year-old man conducted a “fake NCC camp” for four days in a private school in Krishnagiri district during which he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl and sexually abused 12 other minor girls.

As many as eleven people, including main accused Sivaraman, school’s correspondent Samson Wesley, principal Sathish Kumar, two teachers, and the former CRPF personnel V Subramani, have been arrested in connection with the incident. They have been booked under various sections of the Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) and the BNS Act that deal with “aggravated penetrative sexual assault.”

Sivaraman, who was in hiding, was injured while attempting to escape arrest when a police team rounded him up in Coimbatore on Monday morning.

The shocking incident took place in Bargur in Krishnagiri district between August 5 and August 9 when the private school allowed Sivaraman, a functionary of Tamil nationalist outfit Naam Tamizhar Katchi (NTK), to conduct the camp without verifying whether he was part of the National Cadet Corps (NCC).

As many as 41 students, including 17 girls, participated in the “fake” NCC camp. Sivaraman, according to police, sexually assaulted the eighth-standard student on the last day of the camp after asking her to come out of an auditorium. When the minor girl followed his instructions, Sivaraman forced himself upon the girl and sexually assaulted her, the police said.

“The school management allowed Sivaraman to conduct the camp without checking his antecedents. He isn’t authorised to conduct NCC camps as he is in no way connected to the organisation. The school should have been careful,” P Thangadurai, Superintendent of Police, Krishnagiri district, told DH. NCC too clarified that it had nothing to do with the camp organised at the private school.

“The girl reported the incident to the school principal but the management asked the students not to take the issue seriously and decided to hush up the matter. We booked a case immediately after receiving a complaint from the girl’s parents on August 16,” the SP added.

Besides sexually assaulting the girl student, Sivaraman is also alleged to have sexually abused another 12 girls in the same “fake NCC camp” by “touching them inappropriately,” the police officer said.

Krishnagiri District Collector K M Sarayu told DH that the school didn’t follow the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of making a teacher stay with the girl students overnight during camps.

“The District Child Protection Officer has also conducted a separate inquiry. We are focussing on providing counselling to the kids and their parents who are traumatised after the incident. The school also failed to check whether the person who approached them was authentic,” she said.

The Collector added that the district administration was mulling action against the school while noting that several members of the management have already been arrested.

She also said that the district administration and the education department will soon send a circular to all schools asking them to follow the SOPs about the conduct of camps. The district administration will also ramp up awareness activities in schools about sexual abuse and sexual harassment.

Initial investigation has revealed that Sivaraman and the ex-CRPF personnel had duped two schools in Shoolagiri near Hosur and conducted “fake” NCC camps in the past.