Two advocates on Friday moved the Supreme Court to seek a court-monitored inquiry into the Pollachi serial sexual assault and blackmail case, Live Law reported. Petitioners A Rajarajan and Y William Vinoth Kumar, represented by advocate Harish Kumar, asked the court to transfer the case out of Tamil Nadu where the alleged crimes occurred.

The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday transferred the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation. On Tuesday, the Tamil Nadu Police had said that the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department has taken over the case.

The case relates to allegations that a gang of four men were befriending hundreds of women on social media and then sexually molesting them, since 2013. In some cases, the men shot explicit videos of the women and used those to blackmail their victims, police said. Four men – N Satish, N Sabarirajan, T Vasanthakumar and K Thirunavukkarasu – have been arrested in Pollachi in connection with the case. The four are now in judicial custody.

The petitioners on Friday also asked the Supreme Court to ensure that the videos of the victims shot by the accused are not made public. The plea asked that “the investigation be monitored by this court as the entire scandal seems to have been done with political nexus and that the victims have already suffered barbaric sexual assault”.

The petitioners have also asked the court to order the state’s Director General of Police to launch a departmental inquiry into R Pandiarajan, Coimbatore rural superintendent of police, for allegedly revealing a victim’s identity.

Meanwhile, the Madras High Court on Friday ordered the local administration to make sure that all video clips related to sexual harassment of women in the case be deleted, PTI reported. The court was hearing a petition that argued that the release of such videos was taking a toll on the mental health of the women.

The allegations of the sexual harassment and blackmail racket came to light on February 25, when a 19-year-old college student in Pollachi filed a complaint against the accused for sexually harassing her. On February 24, the brother of the college student who filed the case got into a scuffle with the four men. When the police intervened, the victim’s brother explained that the accused had embarrassing pictures and videos of his sister.