Chennai, April 27 (BPNS)
The Vellore district superintendent of Police, Rajesh Kannan has said that the police would be subjecting a juvenile accused in the Vellore gang rape case to mental assessment.
The SP while speaking to BPNS said, “ We will be conducting a mental assessment test of the seventeen and half-year-old who is one among the accused in the Vellore gang rape. The assessment will be conducted on Thursday and we want to measure the mental maturity of the youth.”
According to the provisions of the Juvenile Justice (care and protection) Act, the mental maturity test can decide whether a juvenile aged between 16 and 18 years of age and who commits a serious crime can be treated as an adult.
The Vellore gang rape occurred on March 16th, when the victim a doctor after watching a movie with her male friend was returning to the private hospital where she was working. The woman and her male friend got a lift in a sharing auto but the driver and others in the vehicle including the juvenile abducted them and gang-raped the woman doctor. The gang also forced the male friend to withdraw money from the ATM counter using his debit card and fled the spot.
The police registered a case after the woman doctor filed an online complaint and nabbed the accused six days after the crime.
Those under judicial custody other than the juvenile are, R. Parthiban, R. Barath, V. Manikandan, and Santosh Kumar. Parthiban and Bharat are brothers and all are detained under Goonda Act.
