Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu): Seven college students were arrested allegedly for sexually assaulting a 17-year-old girl here, police said on Tuesday.

One among the seven suspects who were arrested under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, had befriended the girl on social media and invited her to meet him at a house where his friends joined him in committing the crime, police said.

Expressing shock over the incident, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami said that it was 'deeply distressing' that, under the 'Stalin model DMK government', Tamil Nadu was becoming an unsafe state even for young girls.

In a post on the social media platform 'X', he demanded stringent action against the arrested.

BJP state chief K Annamalai said the 'gang rape by seven students is extremely shocking.' "Such collective sexual violence against girls shows that due to the rampant use of drugs, young people are descending into a state of animalistic behavior," he said in a post on 'X'.

He said the entire country was shaken by Nirbhaya. But in Tamil Nadu, every day women, girls, students, female police officers and female government officials were completely unsafe.