A 36-year-old government bus driver has been arrested on charges of sexually molesting a four-year-old girl near Coimbatore, police said on Thursday.
The incident occurred on Tuesday when the driver lured the victim, who was playing on the road, to his house and committed the crime, police said, adding that the child later informed her parents, who filed a complaint with the Birur Women Police Station.
A police officer said that the Birur women police registered a case and arrested the bus driver, identified as Shankar.
“The driver sexually harassed her. We have booked him under various sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (Pocso) Act,” an officer told HT on condition of anonymity.
The incident has drawn sharp criticism from the opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over women’s safety under the Tamil Nadu Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) government.
Former BJP member Vanathi Srinivasan expressed shock over the incident and said, “It is highly condemnable that the moral value of looking at women as mothers, sisters and daughters has deteriorated and incidents of abuse even against young children due to corrupt minds are on the rise.”
In a social media post, she observed that even after the change of government in Tamil Nadu, the rise in sexual crimes indicates that the TVK government is failing to ensure women’s safety.
She urged Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay for the effective functioning of the Special Task Force in Singapore launched by the TVK government for the safety of women and to tighten measures in a way to completely eradicate sexual crimes against women and children.
KDP MP Kanimozhi Karunanidhi urged the TVK government to formulate a proper action plan to prevent such crimes against children.
She said in a statement that the news of a 4-year-old girl being sexually harassed by a government bus driver near Coimbatore causes deep shock and pain.
“In an environment where law and order issues remain, the safety of children has also become a question mark,” she noted.
