Chennai police department has arrested a police inspector on Monday under the grounds of sexually assaulting a minor girl. The arrested policeman, C Pugalendhi, was charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act and he has been lodged in Puzhal prison for further investigations. 

Pugalendhi was the Law and Order Inspector at Ennore, Chennai, and in a shocking development, he has become the first police inspector in Chennai to get arrested under POSCO Act. According to reports, Pugalendhi was arrested based on the confession from a woman, who was earlier arrested by the police for forcing the minor girl into sex-trafficking. 

The arrested woman was identified as Shahitha Banu and she was the aunt of the 13-year-old minor girl and Banu had reportedly pushed the girl into sex work. The girl was in Banu's residence and the girl's mother had come to see her, she had revealed that she has been getting assaulted by her aunt. Following her statement, her mother had approached the All Women's Police Station in Washermanpet and filed a complaint against Shahitha Banu. 

Based on the complaint, the police had arrested Shahitha Banu, her husband Madhankumar, Madhankumar's mother Selvi, and relatives Maheswari, Sandhya, Karthik, Vijaya, and Vanitha. During the investigation, Sandhya had confessed to the police that she had sent the minor girl to one of her clients Rajendran. While the girl was with Rajendran, Pugalendhi had met the girl and sexually assaulted her. 

The police had recovered the girl following which the police had arrested Rajendran and he was also booked under the POCSO Act. During the probe, Rajendran revealed that Pugalendhi had assaulted the minor in exchange for not filing a case against him for pushing the girl into sex work. The probe has led to the arrests of six others who were working as agents and all the arrested were remanded to judicial custody. 

The reports say that police had installed a special team to probe further into the crime. Following the arrest of police inspector Pugalendhi, the Chennai Police department had suspended him from service, booked him under the POCSO Act, and lodged in Puzhal Prison.