The Tamil Nadu police on Wednesday arrested a 55-year-old sub-inspector from Sivaganga town along with three others for allegedly gang-raping a 17-year-old girl earlier this year.
The Madras High Court bench at Madurai issued the arrest order after hearing a petition filed by the victim's lawyer who named sub-inspector Shankar, Senthil, Suresh and Aravind in the alleged sexual assault case.
The other three include an auto-rickshaw driver and friends of the victim's brother, according to the police.
The court also ordered the police to file an Action Taken Report on 3 November. ASP Nanditha Pandey has been appointed as investigating officer in the case.
The petition also claimed that senior police officers at the all-woman police station in Sivaganga, where the case was registered on 4 June, have been trying to slow down the investigation. It claimed that the police did not register the complaint as told by the victim, "but tailored it suitable to their dubious intentions", The Times of India reported.
The lawyer has demanded a CBI probe into the alleged gang-rape case.
A petition was also filed by social activist T Vincent, in which the girl's father R Muthupandi and her brother M Karthik, immediate relatives, friends, advocates, policemen, auto drivers and a bus conductor have been accused of raping her when she stayed at Majeeth Road in Sivaganga earlier this year, forcing her to undergo abortion twice.
The girl has alleged that a neighbourhood tailor, her grandfather who is now dead, her brother's friends, an auto-rickshaw driver, a shopkeeper and the man who delivered water cans to her home also raped her. She said that the accused had drugged her before sexually assaulting her.
The victim, in her statement to a judicial magistrate, had accused Sivaganga town police station inspector Shivakumar and sub-inspector Shankar of raping her when she had gone to file a complaint.
