Goondas Act has been slapped on the expelled DMK functionary and three other persons who were accused of sexually assaulting a 22-year-old Dalit woman in the Virudhunagar district of Tamil Nadu. The invocation of the Goondas Act has come on Thursday- April 14 based on the orders from District Collector J Meghanatha Reddy. The development has come nearly a month after they were arrested in the rape case. 

In March 2022, the Virudhunagar police have arrested eight persons, including four minors, in connection with sexually assaulting a 22-year-old Dalit woman. They were accused of harassing the woman incessantly over a period of seven months by threatening to leak her private videos on social media. The victim had then approached the women's helpline and filed a police complaint on March 20. 

The police had arrested eight people, including four minors and while four minors were later granted conditional bail by the Juvenile Justice Board on April 8, the other four accused - Hariharan (27), Madaswamy (37), Junaith Ahmed (27), and Praveen (22) have been locked up at the Madurai Central Jail. Ahmed was a DMK functionary and after the matter came to light, he was suspended from the party. 

The police had filed an FIR against the four accused under sections 376(2)(n) - rape, 354(c) - voyeurism, 354(d) - stalking of the Indian Penal Code, section 66(e) - violation of the privacy of Information Technology and 3(1)(w)(1)- punishment for offences atrocities, 3(2)(v) - punishment for offences atrocities of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Act. 

The case was then transferred to the CBCID as per the order of Chief Minister MK Stalin and he also had instructed the Tamil Nadu DGP to monitor the investigation directly and ensure the filing of the charge sheet within two months. After a month of arresting the accused, the Virudhunagar district administration had ordered to invoke the Goondas Act on the accused based on the recommendation from the CBCID.