Madras High Court Grants Conditional Bail To Temple Priest Accused Of Sexually Harassing Devotee

The Madras High Court on Tuesday granted conditional bail to Karthick Munusamy, temple priest of Kalikampal temple accused of raping and threatening of kill a woman devotee. Justice TV Tamilselvi granted bail but directed Karthick to appear before the investigating officer regularly and cooperate with the investigation. The case against Karthick was that while he was working as the Guru of the temple, he had befriended a woman devotee, who had moved to Chennai in search of work and later sexually harassed her after offering her spiked drink. The woman, in her complaint filed before the Additional Commissioner of Police, Chennai North, had had said that Karthick gained her trust being the Guru and one day, on the pretext of dropping her at her home, had invited himself inside, made her drink a liquid claiming it to be temple teertham and later sexually harassed her. He added that after gaining consciousness, when she confronted Karthick, he tied a thali around her neck and made her believe that he would save her life. The woman added that she remained silent, fearing insult as she had no family. Later, when she became pregnant, Karthick compelled her to have an abortion claiming that it was not the right time to have a child and the same would put the lady's life in danger. She further informed that Karthick had also forced her to be physical with some VIPs and harassed her physically and mentally when she did not agree. She added that Karthick also used to keep obscene images of herself and other girls in his phone and when confronted harassed the lady. Later, when she got to know that Karthick was already married, she informed his wife who then threatened her. She added that though she had informed another Guru about this incident, none came forward to help her and rather asked her not to go to the police. Following her complaint, a case was registered under Section 417, 354A, 294(b), 312, 506(i) IPC and Section 67A of the IT Act and Karthick was later arrested. Claiming that the investigation had not yielded any result, the defacto complainant had also moved a petition to transfer the investigation from All Women Police Staton, Virugambakkam to the CBCID. Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Mad) 249 Case Title: Karthick Munusamy v State Case No: Crl OP 14224 of 2024

Madras High Court Grants Conditional Bail To Temple Priest Accused Of Sexually Harassing Devotee

Upasana Sajeev

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