K Annamalai, the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Tamil Nadu, whipped himself in Coimbatore as a form of protest. He did this to demand justice for a 19-year-old girl who was reportedly sexually assaulted at Anna University.

The BJP leader stated on Thursday that he would undertake a 48-day fast and refrain from wearing footwear until the DMK was ousted from power in Tamil Nadu. “Tomorrow, I will hold a protest in front of my house, where I will whip myself six times. I will fast for 48 days and appeal to the six-armed Murugan. A protest will be held in front of the house of every BJP member," he remarked during a conference on Thursday. On December 26, leaders from BJP and AIADMK took part in a protest, after which they were detained by the police.

Tamilisai Soundararajan, a leader of the BJP, alleged that the state government, led by the DMK, was trying to suppress dissent. He told news agency ANI, "This is atrocious. They want to crush our voice." The leaders were protesting an incident in which a second-year student from Anna University was reportedly sexually assaulted by a man on the university campus on Monday night. Police have arrested a person related to the case, according to ANI. Annamalai has claimed that the girl and a boy were on the university campus when two unknown individuals reportedly entered the campus, attacked the boy, and sexually assaulted the girl. 

He also blamed the DMK government for allowing crimes against women to increase in the state and urged them to take quick action through the police in this case. The head of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) party, Vijay, has requested that the police to take action on the individual responsible for this crime, which he described as "deeply shocking and painful."