Coimbatore gang-rape: How police tracked the accused via stolen iPhone

Three men accused of abducting and gang-raping a college student in Coimbatore were arrested within 24 hours, thanks to the victim's courage, meticulous police work, and a fatal mistake by the perpetrators: switching on a stolen iPhone.

The device, stolen during the assault, became the digital breadcrumb that led straight to their hideout.

The nightmare

The nightmare unfolded last Sunday (November 2) around 11 pm, when the 20-year-old victim was on a phone call, along with a male friend, near a secluded spot in the city.

A gang of three men, identified as T Karuppasamy alias Satheesh, 30, T Kaaleeswaran alias Karthik, 21, and Thavasi ambushed her, dragged her onto a waiting bike, and subjected her to hours of horrific sexual assault at an isolated location, according to the police.

Victim’s grit

The woman escaped around 4 am the next day and rushed straight to the police, providing a detailed account of the ordeal – including descriptions of her attackers, the vehicle, and a crucial detail: the theft of her friend’s iPhone.

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"I was terrified, but I knew I had to fight back," the victim told investigators later, her statement forming the bedrock of the probe. The Coimbatore City Police deployed seven special teams to comb the city.

"Her precise details gave us a head start we couldn't ignore," said a senior officer involved in the case. "Every minute counted."

The investigation

The investigation unfolded on multiple fronts.

One team zeroed in on the abandoned vehicle, left haphazardly at the crime scene, tracing its registration and ownership leads. Simultaneously, officers scoured footage from over 300 CCTV cameras in the vicinity, piecing together the gang's movements from the abduction site to their escape route.

The breakthrough

But the real breakthrough came from the stolen iPhone.

During the assault, the attackers not only snatched the phone but demanded – and obtained – its passcode from the terrified victim, police said.

Also Read: Timeline of horror: How a late-night chat spiralled into a gang-rape in Coimbatore

Unbeknownst to them, the code was her male friend's birthday, a simple six-digit sequence that would soon seal their fate.

As the special teams fanned out across the district in a high-stakes manhunt, they activated real-time tracking on the device, leveraging its location services and network pings.

The turning point

The turning point arrived on Monday morning (November 3).

Police revealed that the swift arrests of the three accused were triggered by their ill-fated attempt to offload the stolen iPhone just a day after the assault.

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Alerted by the victim's detailed tip-off about the device and its passcode, officers discreetly notified second-hand mobile shops across Coimbatore.

Police said the geo-location data pinpointed the signal to Vellai Kulam, a quiet neighbourhood near Thudiyalur on the city's outskirts. Within hours, a crack team converged on the spot, where the trio was holed up in a rented hideout.

Tense confrontation

What followed was a tense confrontation.

As officers moved in for the arrest, the suspects turned violent, attacking the police with makeshift weapons in a desperate bid to flee.

"They came at us with sticks and stones – we had no choice but to respond with controlled force," the police statement read.

Warning shots were fired, followed by targetted leg wounds to subdue the men. All three were apprehended, medically treated, and remanded in custody, with forensic teams now linking them to the vehicle, CCTV clips, and the survivor’s testimony.

‘Tech-savvy policing meets human resolve’

Coimbatore Police Commissioner Saravana Sundar hailed the operation as a "textbook example of tech-savvy policing meets human resolve."

He said the accused trio boasted grim criminal pedigrees: Karuppasamy with four prior cases, Kaaleeswaran with five, including a 2021 murder of a watchman in Kinathukadavu followed by robbing his wife, from which they were recently bailed in a Sathyamangalam theft case just a month prior.

Also Read: Student abducted, gang-raped near Coimbatore airport; friend assaulted

Having stolen a two-wheeler days earlier to access the crime scene, the out-of-district offenders were flagged for monitoring via reports to their native stations, but slipped through briefly; now in custody, authorities intend to petition for bail cancellations in pending trials to prevent recidivism.

Commissioner slams ‘victim-blaming’

As outrage simmers over the Coimbatore gang-rape case, victim-blaming posts have flooded social media, questioning the survivor's choices and fuelling toxic narratives that shift scrutiny from the perpetrators.

During a tense press briefing, Commissioner Sundar was asked a pointed query: "Why did that woman go to that place at that hour?"

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Undeterred, the top cop delivered a resounding rebuke, declaring, "No one has the right to judge or criticise anyone's personal life. Women's decisions on where they go or how they conduct themselves are their autonomous choices. Society must not presume to dictate what is 'right' or 'wrong.' We must respect the victim's privacy and personal matters – attempts to portray her as culpable are utterly unacceptable and will not be tolerated."