The Kerala Police on Sunday arrested 14 more persons and registered 13 new first information reports in connection with the alleged sexual abuse of an 18-year-old woman in Pathanamthitta district, The Indian Express reported.

The woman has alleged abuse by around 62 men over the past five years.

Sunday’s arrests brought the number of persons detained in the case to 28. Nine of the 13 new FIRs registered were filed at the Elavumthitta police station and four at the Pathanamthitta police station. Five FIRs had been registered earlier.

Those accused of abusing the woman are primarily her classmates, friends and neighbours. Some of them are minors, while others are aged between 20 and 40, representatives from the district Child Welfare Committee said.

The complainant had shared details of the alleged abuse with volunteers from the Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society, who met her during a routine field visit to her school. The woman is a district-level athlete.

The social workers informed the Child Welfare Committee about the case 15 days ago.

The Indian Express quoted unidentified police officers as saying that Sunday’s arrests were related to the FIRs filed on Saturday and that none of the persons who have been accused in the nine cases registered at Elavumthitta and Pathanamthitta had been arrested so far.

A 25-member police team will investigate the cases, The Indian Express quoted Pathanamthitta Superintendent of Police VG Vinod Kumar as saying. Deputy Inspector General of Police (South Zone) Ajeetha Begum Sultan will oversee the investigation.

“Police are collecting scientific evidence in all the cases registered in the incident,” Kumar said.

The police had earlier said that the complainant’s neighbour, Subin, first harassed her by taking photographs of her in the nude when she was 13.

When she was 16, Subin sexually assaulted her. He reportedly recorded videos of the assault and shared them with other persons who went on to assault the woman over the next several years, while she was a minor.

Subin was arrested on Friday, The New Indian Express reported.

Advocate N Rajeev, who heads the Pathanamthitta Child Welfare Committee, said that the woman’s family was unaware of the abuse.

“She hadn’t shared anything with the mother,” Rajeev told The Indian Express. “Since the girl is a district-level athlete, she has attended various sports camps over the years. That situation might have facilitated this series of sexual abuse.”

Rajeev added that the woman had used her father’s mobile phone while participating in several sports camps, which helped the police identify her abusers.

The woman said that her abusers used to contact her on her father’s mobile phone, mostly at night. She had saved their names on the device.

On Sunday, The Indian Express quoted unidentified police officers as saying that the 18-year-old had been picked up from a bus stand in Pathanamthitta on several occasions and taken to different locations by her abusers. The officers added that more cases were likely to be registered at the Pathanamthitta police station in the coming days.

The woman’s alleged abusers will face charges under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, as she is a Dalit.

They have also been booked for aggravated rape, raping a minor, repeatedly raping the same woman, gangrape and sexual harassment under sections of the Indian Penal Code.

They will also face charges under provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and the Information Technology Act for violating the woman’s privacy and engaging a child in the creation of sexually explicit images.

Kerala State Women’s Commission Chairperson P Satheedevi also took suo motu cognisance of the matter and instructed the police to submit a report within a week, The New Indian Express reported.