Drivers of accused granite baron Veeramani held for abetment as POCSO net widens

Chennai police have arrested three drivers of granite baron R. Veeramani on charges of abetting his alleged offences, and conducted searches at their residences, in the widening child sexual abuse probe against the 84-year-old founder of the GEM Group of Companies. The arrests come days after the Greater Chennai Commissioner of Police detained Veeramani and two associates — M. Shanthi, 60, and Mahendra Simhan, 63 — under the Goondas Act on October 1. Veeramani was first arrested on August 29 by the Central Crime Branch's Immoral Trafficking Prevention Unit. The case began nearly a year earlier, on October 6, 2025, when a volunteer of a Chennai-based NGO handed the police a pen drive said to contain video recordings of Veeramani sexually assaulting a minor girl at a house belonging to Shanthi. Five cases now stand registered against the octogenarian industrialist. Police say the offences include aggravated penetrative sexual assault of minors in 2019 and 2024, and — in a development that dates back more than two decades — the abetment of a minor girl's suicide in 2004. A fifth case was registered on September 30 on the complaint of a woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted. Officers say more complaints are being received and verified. The 2004 case came to light, investigators say, when police accessed a message in which Shanthi allegedly asked Veeramani whether he remembered his involvement in the death of a girl. A special team identified the victim and contacted her family. The girl's mother has lodged a formal complaint alleging her daughter was sexually abused by Veeramani and died by suicide — and that a complaint made to the local police in 2004 drew no action. Investigators are also examining claims that the accused gave the family one lakh rupees on two occasions. Police have told the court that about 24.63 crore rupees moved from Veeramani's bank account to Shanthi's, and two crore rupees from her account to one allegedly maintained by Simhan — transfers the prosecution says indicate financial links among the accused. Electronic devices seized in the investigation are being examined to determine whether other minors were involved. Veeramani's judicial custody has been extended till October 9. Police have opposed the bail petitions of Shanthi and Simhan, alleging the destruction of evidence and the screening of the offender. The Madras High Court has refused to transfer the probe to the CBI; a four-member all-woman Special Investigation Team led by Additional Commissioner P.C. Thenmozhi is pursuing it. The case has already spilled into electoral politics. Chief Minister Vijay raised it at a Madurantakam bypoll rally, accusing the previous DMK government of burying the 2004 complaint — a charge the DMK rejects as false, and over which it has moved the Madras High Court for leave to file a one-crore-rupee defamation suit against two of Vijay's ministers. What no politician disputes: a complaint filed in 2004 that went nowhere for twenty-two years, and a pen drive in 2025 that made it impossible to keep buried.