Chennai Faces Surge in Sexual Assaults Amidst Systemic Failures

CHENNAI: Poor political will, nondeterrent policing, unpatrolled neighbourhoods, unlit lanes, secluded spots. That’s why there were 12 sexual assaults in 24 hours in Chennai and its suburbs. Police arrested suspects in all 12 cases. But, the speed of the arrests offered cold comfort. The question is: Why were so many women and children assaulted in the first place? The incidents have come just six days after the Singappen Special Force were formed on June 9. The 70-team SSP’s mandate is to monitor, anticipate, and prevent such crimes.

Seven-year-old sexually assaulted

Chennai’s police force numbers 23,000 personnel across 105 stations. In practice, each station deploys only four patrol officers, roughly 500 personnel patrolling a city of 10 million at any given time, supplemented by 300 bike patrols. Across the city’s vast, unlit interior lanes, that presence is nearly invisible. Tambaram police commissionerate, carved out of Chennai in Jan 2022 to oversee the urbanising southern fringes, covers an area nearly twice the size of Chennai commissionerate. But it has a sanctioned strength of just 4,000 personnel across 25 stations. The northern fringes are worse. Tiruvallur district sprawls over 2,700sqkm, but has only 1,300 policemen. Avadi, spread over 626sqm, has 4,600 policemen on duty. Three of the 12 cases were in Avadi.

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But, unlike Chennai city, the jurisdictions of Avadi, Tambaram and Tiruvallur sprawl across vast suburban, semi-rural and plain rural stretches, making policing more challenging. Tiruvallur district superintendent Vivekananda Shukla said the department maintains a list of vulnerable hotspots under regular monitoring and patrol routes are changed every day based on assessment. Kamalanathan, a software professional near Manimangalam, where a 10-year-old was abused at a construction site on Sunday, put it bluntly: “We have never seen police patrolling on interior roads near Tambaram. There is a police outpost in the area, but it always remains locked.”

Construction worker assaults a 10-year-old girl

Three of the latest string of incidents involved guest workers. TN has roughly 13 lakh registered guest workers. Contractors are legally required to verify antecedents and register them with police, a safeguard that appears unenforced. The labour department is now collecting data on children accompanying migrant workers to coordinate their enrolment in schools.

Class VII Student sexually assaulted

“We already have data on registered guest workers. Now we have asked our officers to collect data on children accompanying them to ensure their safety,” a senior official said.