A horrifying incident unfolded on Monday night (3 February 2025) when an 18-year-old girl, originally from West Bengal, was abducted and sexually assaulted while waiting outside the Kilambakkam bus terminus.
According to a senior official from the Tambaram Police Commissionerate, the victim, who works in Salem, had boarded a bus to visit relatives in Madhavaram. After her arrival at the terminus, she was waiting to board another bus to her destination when an autorickshaw driver offered her a ride. When she declined, the driver forcibly abducted her.
As the vehicle sped along GST Road and then Irumbuliyur Road, two other men joined the driver, and the girl was threatened with a knife before being sexually assaulted in the moving vehicle. During the ordeal, she screamed for help, prompting nearby residents to alert the police.
A patrol team from Tambaram quickly pursued the autorickshaw, but the driver fled into a narrow street in Nerkundram where he and his accomplices abandoned the victim. The girl was then assisted by an auto-rickshaw driver, S. Mohan, from Triplicane, who took her to Madha Koil Street near Koyambedu, where she was eventually rescued by the police.
The victim provided crucial details to investigators, and a case has been filed at the Pallavaram All Women Police station. Authorities have launched a manhunt for the three suspects involved in the crime.
In response to the incident, Tamil Nadu BJP chief K. Annamalai condemned the MK Stalin-led DMK government, stating that sexual assault had become a “horrifying reality” in the state. He criticized the government’s handling of crime, particularly the rise in drug availability and the decline in arrests.
Taking to his X handle, he wrote, “An 18-year-old girl was abducted in an auto rickshaw outside the Kalaignar Centenary Bus Terminus in Kilambakkam and was sexually assaulted. She was saved by a good samaritan who dialled the police control room after hearing the girl’s cry for help. Sexual assault across TN has become a horrifying reality, with drugs becoming an easily accessible commodity. However, the number of arrests made in NDPS cases in TN in the last three years, between 2022 and 2024, was only 1122. In 2021 (in one year), the total number of arrests in NDPS cases was 9632. The sale of Ganja & Methamphetamine is on the rise in TN but the arrests are on the decline. How? Has the TN Govt deliberately become complacent to give drug peddlers a free run? How many more victims before authorities ensure safer streets for our sisters???”
An 18-year-old girl was abducted in an auto rickshaw outside the Kalaignar Centenary Bus Terminus in Kilambakkam and was sexually assaulted. She was saved by a good samaritan who dialled the police control room after hearing the girl’s cry for help.
Sexual assault across TN has… pic.twitter.com/Wa2AvsYybV
— K.Annamalai (@annamalai_k) February 5, 2025
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