In a full-fledged development in the Pollachi sexual assault case, the CBI on Wednesday arrested three more accused, of which one person is linked to the AIADMK, in connection with sexual assault and extortion case. The three people who have been arrested by the CBI are namely Arulanatham (34), Heron Paul (29), and Babu (30). Arunathalam is the Pollachi town secretary of AIADMK student wing.

All of them were produced before the Mahila court here, which remanded them to 14 days judicial custody, police said. The central agency, which has taken over the probe from CB-CID, had already booked five people in this regard. A charge-sheet was filed against the five arrested, in May 2019.

Further investigations led to the arrest of Arunanandam, the student wing leader of ruling AIADMK and his two acquaintances in the early hours of Wednesday, they said. The matter came to the spotlight in February 2019 after a 19-year old woman student had lodged a grievance with the police alleging that a gang of four men had tried to strip her inside a car, shot a video of the act and blackmailed her using the visuals.

The gang was believed to have sexually harassed and blackmailed a large number of women in Pollachi over a period of time. The matter triggered a public fury, prompting the Tamil Nadu government to first transfer the case to the CB-CID police and then to the CBI.

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