Anna University Sexual Assault: 14 Under TN Police Scanner For Downloading FIR; NIC Blames 'Technical Glitch'

Their mobile numbers were used to obtain the OTP to download the FIR of an alleged sexual assault on a student in Anna University campus.

Chennai:Tamil Nadu police are monitoring 14 individuals some including journalists who downloaded the FIR about a sexual assault on a student in the Anna University Campus, officials said on Tuesday. While the MEITY officials have blamed it on a technical glitch, the police have booked two news channels for revealing the identity of the victim in their broadcast.

The FIR was downloaded from the Union Home Ministry's Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), which is administered by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). The NIC is part of the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology(MEITY).

The OTP trail

Sources from the police department said they have sought inputs of the mobile numbers to which the users have sought the OTP to download the sensitive FIR. The said individuals are under the scanner for any role in the subsequent leak of the FIR. It is pertinent to note the Supreme Court had laid down the guidelines on media coverage on sexual assault crimes and to protect the identities of the survivors or victims in such cases. It forbids sharing or transmission of sensitive information on sensitive cases involving women and children.

Six television channels in Tamil Nadu had broadcast the details from the sensitive FIR, revealing the identity of the sexual assault victim. Four channels have taken it off air following backlash within a few minutes. Two including a party mouth piece had kept the sensitive information on air for hours before taking it off, a senior police official privy to the investigation said.

The Commissioner of Police(CoP) A Arun, in a press conference last week, said technical glitches allowed the users to download the FIR. Criminal action under provisions of the IT act has been necessitated against two TV channels, said the COP, without naming the channels.

NIC asks SCRB to recheck sensitive sections

ETV Bharat has learnt that the NIC regional office had informed the state government that the transition from the Indian Penal Code(IPC) to Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita(BNS) could have led to the lapse.

A senior director at the NIC has written to the government stating that the facility to 'VIEW FIR' was created in line with the inputs provided by the State Crime Records Bureau(SCRB). He also stated how the logic was applied to block the view of FIRs under sensitive sections/subsections.

"May be due to some technical glitches and the migration from IPC to BNS, it might had happened(sic)," R Arul Mozhi Varman, senior director(IT), wrote in reply to a query over the FIR leak addressed to the NIC.

The NIC official maintained that they had revisited the code. He also asked the SCRB team to "check all the possibilities on "View FIR" page to ensure that the suggested sensitive sections/sub-sections are blocked."

State blames NIC

Earlier, Law Minister S Regupathy asserted that the pitfall in the NIC system led to the FIR leak and steps were in place to address the same. The same was echoed by the Commissioner of Police(CoP) A Arun. He had said technical glitches which failed to block the FIR.

On Dec 23, the Tamil Nadu Police has registered a case on the alleged sexual assault on a 19-year-old student in the state's premier technical varsity. Two days later, they arrested a man running a street food joint in the same locality where the varsity is located.

On Monday, a fact-finding team from the National Commission for Women (NCW) began its probe into the circumstances leading to the incident and the action taken. The Opposition AIADMK has been going hammer and tongs on the DMK government in the incident and has alleged that the arrested suspect is a DMK man. The ruling party has disassociated itself from having any ties with the arrested suspect.

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