Coimbatore gang-rape case: How CCTV, stolen TVS 50, iPhone led to dramatic arrest of trio

After a daylong hunt, the Coimbatore city police on Tuesday morning nabbed the three men accused in the Coimbatore gang-rape case. A young second-year management student was abducted and raped by three men near the Coimbatore international airport on Sunday night. The incident came to light after her boyfriend, who was also assaulted by the three men, called the police for help. 

 

The three men, identified as Guna, Karuppasamy and Karthik alias Kaleeswaran, who are repeat offenders, were out on bail in a theft case. The three were intercepted on the outskirts of Mettupalayam on Monday night by one of the seven special teams formed by the police to crack the gang-rape case. “They were shot in the legs as they attempted to escape,” said Saravana Sundar, Coimbatore City Police Commissioner. The three were then taken to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital. A head constable who was involved in the operation was also injured during the scuffle, the commissioner said in the press conference.

 

The police carefully examined visuals from over 300 surveillance cameras across the city, and also near the airport and mapped every clue from the footage. The TVS 50--a two-wheeler that went missing--rode by the accused, was the crucial clue that led to the arrest of the three men. 

 

Talking to THE WEEK, one of the senior police officers said that the past criminal records of the accused matched with the two-wheeler theft case and the investigations into that led the police to crack the gang-rape case. The three men who rode the two-wheeler to the crime spot had allegedly broken the car window in which the young girl and her boyfriend were, assaulted her boyfriend, pulled her out to an isolated shed beyond a wall, where she was raped. She was found at around 4.30am on Monday, though the police launched the search for her by 11.35pm on Sunday, after they were alerted.

 

Two of the three men had come out on bail in a theft case, just a month before, and all three have strong criminal records. While Karuppasamy and Kaleesawaran are brothers, Guna is their friend who came to reside with them a few months before. All three are woodcutters. 

 

The accused had allegedly stolen a TVS 50 in the locality. The police had actually launched a probe in the theft case. The CCTV footage showed them coming in a TVS 50 and had planned to escape to Mettupalayam. They had also taken an iPhone from one of their friends. Knowing this, the police had alerted all the mobile shops in the area as they believed that they might come to sell the phone.

 

When one of them came to charge the phone in a nearby mobile shop, the shopkeeper alerted the police. The police reached the spot to nab them, while the other two were waiting at the end of the road. All three were taken to the crime spot, where a scuffle broke out with the police. Following the scuffle, one of the head constables was injured, and the police shot at their legs as they tried to escape. 

 

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, after a day’s silence on the case tweeted no harsh words would be sufficient to condemn the crime. He said that he had instructed the police to file the charge-sheet in the case within a month and to ensure that they receive the maximum punishment. “It is only the progress of women that will end the dominance of such perverted male-dominant mindset,” Stalin said.

India