Nearly a year after a case was registered over the alleged sexual abuse of a minor in Chennai, police have arrested the accused, granite businessman R Veeramani and two associates.
Veeramani (81), founder of GEM Granites, was arrested by the Anti-Vice Squad of the Central Crime Branch along with a woman identified as Shanthi and her husband Mahendra Simhan. The three were subsequently produced before a court and remanded in judicial custody.
The arrests came after a Special POCSO Court rejected a police report seeking to close the case and ordered further investigation. The court's intervention followed an investigation into a pen drive containing a video that purportedly showed a minor girl being sexually assaulted.
The case originated on October 6, 2025, when a person approached the Anti-Vice Squad and handed over a pen drive. According to the police, he said an unidentified man had visited his workplace and given him the device, claiming it contained a video of a minor being sexually assaulted.
After examining the footage, police registered a case on October 7, 2025. The person who handed over the pen drive reportedly told investigators that the man in the video was Veeramani and that the alleged offence had taken place at a house associated with Shanthi.
Police subsequently said they identified the man in the footage as Veeramani, a granite industrialist from Adyar and founder of GEM Granites. Investigators also traced a house in Teynampet that Veeramani had rented and found that its day-to-day management had been entrusted to Shanthi and Mahendra Simhan.
According to the police, several minor girls were brought to the house and Veeramani allegedly committed sexual offences against them. Investigators have seized video footage relating to the alleged abuse of one minor girl and are examining whether other offences took place at the property.
Searches of the accused's residences and offices also resulted in the seizure of photographs of other minor girls and women, besides other material that police said could be connected to the investigation. The police have not disclosed the identity or whereabouts of the girl seen in the original video.
Despite the investigation, the Anti-Vice Squad subsequently sought to close the case, citing a lack of evidence. In its closure report before the special POCSO court, the agency said the incident shown in the video appeared to have taken place in 2019 and that the identity and whereabouts of the girl were unknown.
The police also relied on statements recorded from Veeramani, Shanthi and Mahendra Simhan, as well as other witnesses. According to the closure report, the three denied allegations that the incident had taken place at their residence and said that the man in the video was not Veeramani.
The police also pointed to the digital recording data associated with the pen drive while seeking to drop further action. The Anti-Vice Squad consequently filed a ‘further action dropped’ report before the special court dealing with POCSO cases in Chennai.
The court rejected the report on August 19 and ordered the police to conduct a further investigation. The agency was given four weeks to complete the probe.
On the same day, police said they had established that Veeramani was the man seen in the video. The investigation led them to the Teynampet property and helped uncover the alleged role Shanthi and Mahendra Simhan had in managing the premises.
Police have alleged that the couple facilitated the offences and helped Veeramani in connection with the alleged sexual abuse of the minor girls brought to the house. Their role is now also part of the investigation.
The accused have been booked under Sections 7, 8, 15(1) and 21(1) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act and Section 67 of the Information Technology Act, according to police. They have been remanded in judicial custody.
The police have also not disclosed how the person who handed over the pen drive obtained the footage or who recorded it.
The arrests have also raised questions over why the case remained unresolved for almost 11 months after it was registered.
Greater Chennai Police Commissioner A Amalraj has now directed officers to examine whether the minor in the video was subjected to sexual abuse by more than one person. He has also ordered an internal inquiry into the delay in the investigation and the failure to take further action after the complaint was registered.
The internal inquiry will examine why the case remained pending with the investigating officers and why the allegations were not pursued further before the court intervened. Senior officers have been asked to determine whether there were lapses in the handling of the POCSO case.