CS Muruganandam chairs meeting with top cops to combat crime in TN against women, children

CHENNAI: Against the backdrop of the opposition mounting pressure on the DMK regime over the issue of rising sexual crimes against women and children in the state, state chief secretary N Muruganandam on Wednesday reportedly held a detail review with the officials of the state home department and senior police officers of the state on optimising the safety of women and children in Tamil Nadu.

On the day leader of opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami launched a scathing attack on the ruling DMK, calling the state ‘unsafe’ for women and children in the reign of Chief Minister MK Stalin, Chief Secretary Muruganandam got into a huddle with state DGP Shankar Jiwal among the senior police officers on improving women’s safety.

Though the state government did not make public any decision taken at the meeting, the head of the state bureaucracy is understood to have briefed the head of the police force and senior officials regarding intensifying the measures required to be taken to prevent crimes, mainly sexual violence against women and children.

The meeting takes place close on the heels of some disturbing incidents of sexual crimes recorded against girl students in the state, especially the Krishnagiri incident where a class eight girl student was sexually abused by three of her own teachers in a government school and a similar incident was recorded at a private school in Trichy district.

Pressure on the state government over the issue only increased further after another incident of a pregnant woman being sexually assaulted and pushed from a moving train by a stranger was recorded near Vellore a few days ago.

The state bureaucracy got into damage control mode a few weeks after the government amended the laws, and that too in the backdrop of the Anna University sexual assault case, to award stricter punishment to sexual offenders, committing crimes against women and children.