On Tuesday, the Madras High Court took a firm stance against the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Tamil Nadu police, which is probing the Anna University sexual assault case. The court criticized the SIT for allegedly harassing journalists by summoning them and seizing their mobile phones before questioning the police officers who authored and uploaded the First Information Report (FIR) that was leaked, revealing the victim’s identity. The SIT’s investigation is not only focused on the sexual assault of a 19-year-old student on campus by an outsider last December but also on how the FIR was leaked.
Justice GK Ilanthirayan directed the SIT, which was previously constituted by the court, to refrain from harassing journalists under the pretext of questioning them. He also instructed journalists to cooperate with the probe. This direction came in response to a petition filed by four journalists from Chennai, who claimed that the SIT had summoned them multiple times, seized some of their mobile phones, and asked them irrelevant questions about their families, personal lives, and properties.
These four journalists had downloaded the FIR in the sexual assault case from the state police website. They argued that it was not wrong to download the FIR and that they had not revealed the survivor’s identity through their reportage. In a press conference following the crime, Greater Chennai City Police Commissioner A Arun explained that due to technical glitches in the transition from the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the FIR was inadvertently uploaded and leaked. He noted that the FIR would otherwise have been automatically locked in the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network Systems (CCTNS) to ensure its confidentiality.
The local Kotturpuram police had arrested the lone accused, 37-year-old Gnanasekaran, a biryani hawker, on December 25 last year. He was accused of trespassing into the university and assaulting the second-year student. According to the woman’s complaint to the police, she was hanging out with her male friend behind a building on December 23 when the accused threatened them. Gnanasekaran first assaulted her male friend, a third-year student, before sexually assaulting her. She filed the complaint the next day at the Kotturpuram all-women police station.
The case has caused a significant political uproar in the state, drawing attention to the handling of sexual assault cases and the protection of victims’ identities. Justice Ilanthirayan has assured that a detailed order will be passed on the matter, highlighting the importance of balancing the investigation’s integrity and the journalists’ rights.