Chennai: For a 21-year-old woman college student in Tamil Nadu’s Palladam—a tiny textile town on the outskirts of Coimbatore—the campaign for the state’s upcoming assembly election could not matter less now. Molested along with three other women students by a gang of bikers one evening in February, she is so emotionally scarred that she does not step out of her home any more. Repeated visits from the police, political leaders and a community representative have only added to the fear felt by the whole family. The student just wants to escape every horrid memory of the assault, and move on.
“We narrowly escaped because a truck was passing by, and the driver noticed that we were being dragged into the school buses parked on the wayside. He came to attack the boys with something that looked like a meat cleaver. That’s when the boys rode away,” another young woman from the group that was assaulted tells ThePrint between sobs, all the time holding her feet tight together to vainly stop them from trembling.
For a state that will vote in a fresh government Thursday, it couldn’t matter more. The increase in cases of sexual violence in Tamil Nadu in the last two years had already pushed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government on the defensive in the courts and before the people. In January, the Madras High Court had demanded the personal appearance of the home secretary due to a heavy backlog of police cases, raising specific concerns over a few cases pending for over nine years.
Subsequently, the home secretary and the government were pulled up by the high court after March brought a new horror: a 14-year-old was allegedly waylaid by two men and raped by a lake in Madurantakam, Chengalpattu district.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader K. Annamalai—a former cop known for being a tough officer—had called for Chief Minister and DMK leader M.K. Stalin’s resignation, posting on social media that the crime is a “big shame” and “cruel proof that law and order in Tamil Nadu has completely collapsed”.
On 12 March, three days after the incident, the Home Secretary Dheeraj Kumar held an unusual joint press conference in Chennai along with senior police officers, where he defended the government’s record on law and order. He further said the briefing was held to clarify misinformation about the law and order situation in the state. It wasn’t just the Opposition that found the press meet odd, but the Election Commission took notice as well. On 11 April, the poll panel ordered the transfer of the home secretary and his replacement by K. Manivasan.
The sharp surge in crimes against women and children has thrust women’s safety into the boiler room of Tamil Nadu’s election campaign. Women account for more than 51 percent of the Tamil Nadu electorate, and this issue has both headlined and hemorrhaged the political campaigns.
A campaign issue
The one common feature that now cuts across the vicious and heated Tamil Nadu election campaign is the repeated assurances of safety made to this voting bloc.
On ground and in their manifestos, the DMK, All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) have emphasised women’s safety through increased financial aid, enhanced security measures like CCTV/smart panic buttons, and specialised police units, like a Durga Suraksha Squad.
From zero tolerance to crime against women and fast-track courts, the focus of the manifestos also extends to workplace security and state-of-the-art command centres that will be established to respond to emergencies in real time.
“The parties referred to cases carelessly throwing data points at one another at rallies in towns and cities. However, the DMK has clearly not been able to match the Opposition’s campaignspeak on this issue,” said the founder of a Madurai-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) that helps women and children in these cases. This NGO has presented comprehensive data indicating a steep rise of 40 percent in crimes against women in Tamil Nadu in the last five years.
The numbers are worrying. According to the state home department, Tamil Nadu POCSO cases have shown a massive jump over the past six years. Even though 2023 showed a slight dip to 4,581, the number of registered cases stood at 6,969 in 2024, up 125.54 per cent from 3,090 in 2020.
A recent lack of clarity doesn’t help. The state government has failed to provide official figures to the National Crime Records Bureau after 2023, verified data by the home department is unavailable, and the numbers put forth by civil servants are questioned by the media and Opposition.
For these women students, and scores of women and children who have suffered similar abuse, the campaign has become emotionally daunting. “Where are those who weep for the women in Manipur? Why aren’t they here? Why isn’t the women’s commission sending its team to investigate the horrific rise in crime against women and children in Tamil Nadu?” says B. Valarmathi, a former minister from AIADMK.
Annamalai had reacted strongly after the home secretary’s 12 March press conference.
“We do not trust the data published by the home secretary on the murder and rape crimes for the years 2024 and 2025. The reason being that in 2021, the reported murder cases as per NCRB were 1,686, but the home secretary says that the number of murder cases reported in Tamil Nadu in 2021 was 1,597,” he had said, alleging the published data was manipulated and that the Tamil Nadu government is withholding crime-related data for the years 2024 and 2025.
Union Minister and former BJP President J.P. Nadda had later quoted a different set of statistics.
“In the last five years, 8,008 murders have taken place and sexual assault and gang violence have penetrated every street of Tamil Nadu. There is a 56 percent surge in crime against women and a 125 percent rise in POCSO cases,” he had said.
“It (the state) is one of the leaders as far as the drugs are concerned; there is a 51 percent surge in drug-related offences. Stalin is not only corrupt, but a protector of the corrupt. The DMK has failed to protect women, children, and has not fulfilled 90 percent of its promises.”
Unsafe cyberspace
The web remains yet another frontier of crime against women. Activists report a sharp spike in cases of online harassment even as the ruling party attributes higher numbers to improved awareness and reporting. The spikes come amid reports of high-profile incidents involving minors and young women, in both urban and rural areas and involving online abuse, image morphing, stalking and threats via social media and messaging apps.
In one case, a man from Trichy was arrested for cyber-harassing a woman based in the United States. He used digital platforms to send threatening and abusive messages.
Another infamous incident in October last year involved the arrest of 42-year-old Gopi, a Thoothukudi native, by Chennai’s West Zone Cyber Crime Police. After meeting a woman from Nerkundram on Facebook and facing rejection, Gopi had allegedly created fake social media accounts in her name, sharing her and her two daughters’ phone numbers with strangers, sending obscene WhatsApp messages to the younger daughter, and posting vulgar, defamatory comments on the elder daughter’s profiles.
Gopi was apprehended, but this was not his first offence, which underscores the danger of repeated offences in the digital space.
Women and dalit rights activist Shalin Maria Lawrence says that women’s safety is a political issue which is not given attention post elections.
Looking back at the AIADMK regime, she refers to the Pollachi case, where some 200 women were sexually assaulted via a web racket. But cybercrime against women has only increased in the last five years, she says. “There is a dismissal of cases and reality when there is social engineering to portray that the society is safe by political parties. There are death and rape threats from each and every party whenever we talk about the rising crime rate. They ignore online violence and morphing of images, threats and other issues as a major women’s safety issue.”
Lawrence added that Opposition leaders would talk about it, but the dynamics would change after elections. “Women voters are important for them but women are not even safe inside their party. Even their IT wings gang up on women, and there are trolls targeted against us for speaking up on women safety issues. The TVK is very defensive on any such allegations and criticism against the party, DMK tops the chart in the state when it comes to women’s safety concerns,” she says.
‘Issue against DMK’
Comparisons with the approach of former leaders, like Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, point to a perceived loss of police resolve and the normalisation of online trolling and bullying.
Lalitha Kumaramangalam, former chairperson of National Commission for Women, highlights that Jayalalithaa was always strict when it came to issues of women’s safety, and that women are “strong voters”. However, the current scenario shows that there is not enough done for women’s safety by the government, she says.
“The sort of abuse, trolling, and bullying women are subjected to, is scary. We have come across several cases of violence where even small children have been the victims. Earlier, the police always had the spine to call out these cases and take action but the protection of women has seen deterioration, with little to no help from authorities. Even in the earlier DMK regime, talking politically, Kalaignar Karunanidhi knew women’s safety was a significant issue and their voices mattered. Why are MPs not even talking about it now?” she remarks.
“Women’s safety is going to be one issue against the DMK.”
The DMK continues to emphasise welfare schemes, and claims rising reports reflect greater trust in the system. Officials also say that Tamil Nadu has strengthened its legal framework.
On 10 January, 2025, the assembly had passed the Criminal Laws (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Bill 2025, and the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Harassment of Women (Amendment) Bill 2025, moved by Chief Minister Stalin with an aim to enhance punishment for sexual crimes against women and children, explicitly covering digital and electronic harassment. The amended 1998 Act broadens the term ‘harassment’ to include indecent digital behaviour causing fear or shame, replacing outdated ‘eve-teasing’ provisions.
Responding to the allegations of increasing incidents of rape, lack of women’s safety and online harassment, DMK leader and Member of Parliament R.S. Bharathi told ThePrint that Tamil Nadu remains one of the safest states in the country.
“It is just propaganda to instill fear in the minds of the public. The people know they are safe and women’s safety has remained one of the top priorities of the government in the last five years.”
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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