2-finger Virginity test: TN Governor's claims require verification
text_fields
Chennai: The News Minute's ground reporting gathered information from the local authority that no girl child was subjected to the two-finger virginity test in Tamil Nadu's Natarajar temple in Chidambaram. The Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi had claimed that police in the Cuddalore district of the state, where Chidambaram is located, took action on the basis of the complaint received from the Social Welfare Department, and the complaint was filed on personal vengeance.
He also claimed that there were no cases of child marriage. The girls, daughters of priests in the temple and studying in "sixth, seventh" standards, were forcibly taken to the hospital and made to undergo the two-finger virginity tests, he claimed. "Some" of the girls, who became subject to the virginity test, attempted suicide.
After the allegations he issued in an interview with Times of India, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) ordered the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu to investigate the Governor's "revelations" of police taking action on the basis of petitions filed out of revenge and the virginity test.
However, TNM learned from local authorities and police that not "some" but only two girls were medically examined, but the alleged two-finger test was never employed.
It was on September and October 2022 that two Deekshitars from the Natarajar temple in Chidambaram in the Cuddalore district, along with the secretary of the temple, Hemasabesa, were arrested by the police. Pasupathy was the groom of one of the victims, while Ganapathy and Hemasabesa were the fathers of the two girls. They were arrested under charges of child marriage.
According to the Governor, there were no child marriages happening in the place, but TNM learned from district police that the cases were under investigation and no conclusion can be drawn at present.
When the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment (HR&CE) Department admitted that it received 14,000 complaints of child marriage, Governor claimed that the incidents that happened at the Natarajar temple in Chidambaram did not come under the HR&CE Department.