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Kerala Police have arrested all but two accused in connection with the sexual assault of an 18-year-old Dalit girl in Pathanamthitta district. Since the first case was registered by the Ilavumthitta Police on January 10, the Special Investigation Team arrested 57 out of the 59 accused, except for two who are abroad, according to the police.
The police made the latest arrest in the case on Sunday. The accused VS Arun (25) was taken into custody near his house in the district. Ilavumthitta Police registered 17 cases from 10 to 14 this month, with a total of 25 accused. The fifth accused in the first case, S Sudhi, is in jail in a POCSO case registered by the Pathanamthitta Police last year. On the January 11, the ADGP had ordered to form a 25-member special investigation team. The investigation, supervised by Thiruvananthapuram Range DIG Ajitha Begum, is being led by the District Police Chief VG Vinod Kumar. The District Police Chief informed that there has been great progress in the investigation in a few days and legal action has been taken to arrest the accused abroad quickly. The DIG is constantly assessing the progress of the investigation. A total of 30 cases were registered in four stations in the district based on the student's statement (Pathanamthitta 11, Ilavumthitta 17, Pandalam 1, Malayalapuzha 1). Of these, two accused in the case registered in Pandalam station were arrested on the same day. The Malayalapuzha Police team stayed in Chennai for two days and took the accused into custody in a secret operation conducted with the help of the cyber cell, said the police. The accused were being arrested in the cases at Ilavumthitta and Pathanamthitta police stations right from the beginning. Five minors were among those arrested. The police team is moving to complete the investigation in a timely manner and file the chargesheet in the court, the Pathanamthitta police said in a statement. It is alleged that when the teen was 13 years old, Subin, one of the accused had sent obscene messages and pictures to her through his mobile phone. He is also accused of procuring obscene pictures and videos of the teen, according to Pathanamthitta Police. Furthermore, allegedly when the girl was 16 years old, the accused took her on a bike to Achankottumali near her house and raped her in a rubber farm in an uninhabited area. The event was recorded on his phone. Later, during the investigation, it was revealed that Subin showed it to the other accused who were his friends. The statement also states that they took her to Achankottumali in a group and gang-raped her, added the statement of Pathanamthitta Police. (ANI)
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