Sex and CD Scandal: Sid Harth
Sid Harth
Breaking News:
Temple town reels under sleaze scandal
A Selvaraj & Kamini Mathai, TNN 3 December 2009, 10:52am ISTText Size:|
Topics:Temple
Chennai
Kancheepuram
Maheswarar
Devanathan
CHENNAI: For a town of a thousand temples, a sex scandal, that too one
involving a priest, has come as a shocker. About 75km from Chennai
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perched on the edge of the booming industrial hub of Sriperumbudur,
Kancheepuram is yet to recover from the brazenness of 35-year-old
Devanathan, who allegedly played out his ‘unholy’ acts in the sanctum
sanctorum of the Maheswarar temple.
Police picked up the man in first week of November after they got hold
of a CD showing his sexual exploits within the temple’s precincts.
Copies of the CD had apparently sold like hot cakes in the town famous
for its ‘kancheevaram’ silks. With the media splashing salacious
details of his relationships with a series of women, apparently from
varied socio-economic backgrounds, the issue continues to rock the
local community which comprises weavers and families associated with
the management of the temples that crowd its landscape. With some of
the women now accusing the priest of rape, the case which was
initially based on obscenity was transferred on Tuesday from the
town’s police force to the district crime branch for investigation.
Clearly, what’s made the incident sensational are its voyeuristic and
exhibitionistic aspects which seem out of place in a small town known
for its orthodox traditions.
Police say the priest allegedly threatened and sexually assaulted at
least 30 women. Among the victims who approached the police is a 30-
year-old woman, Malar (name changed), wife of a school teacher, living
close to the temple. She complained that priest had drugged her before
raping her inside the temple. She alleged that the priest had
blackmailed her by recording footage of their sexual act on his mobile
phone, and forced her to have sex with him on several occasions later.
Malar accused the priest of threatening to tell her husband about the
relation if she failed to ‘co-operate’. The priest would apparently
visit her house requesting for milk to do a puja, as a way of
communicating his desire to meet her at the temple.
“We have questioned Malar and recorded her statement,” Siva Kanchi
police inspector S Pattabiram told TOI. Following her revelations, the
police booked the priest for rape on Monday. “There are many more
victims to be questioned. We will submit the case diary and statements
recorded by the local police station in connection with the case to
DCB officials formally in a couple of days,” Pattabiram added.
Devanathan, a father of two, has meanwhile been remanded in judicial
custody and is now lodged in the Vellore prison.
The incident has sparked a sense of outrage among denizens of the
temple town. S Mahesh, a member of a local activist group called the
Kanchi Makkal Mantram, said his organisation condemned the incident
and was planning “a door-to-door campaign to distribute pamphlets to
get more people to the streets to protest against the priest.” Other
members of the outfit claimed the scandal had triggered off rumours
about identities of other women, who were videographed by the priest.
Talk that CDs were being circulated in the town had caused much
anguish. Manoharan, a resident of Siva Kanchi close to Maheswarar
Temple, said, “I have been living in the locality for more than eight
years. We believe this temple is very powerful. Many women visit it. I
have seen the priest distributing special puja ‘prasadham’ to young
women and girls.” Police are probing to check if the priest had video-
recorded sexual acts with his victims and then handed them over to an
accomplice running a video shop in Kancheepuram. His accomplice had
allegedly made copies of CDs and circulated it in Kancheepuram and
other areas.
...and I am Sid harth