Veeramani Child Sexual Abuse Case: 2 Senior IPS Officers Stripped Of Posts Over Alleged Failure To Act On Earlier Complaint

Chennai: Two senior IPS officers, who had previously served as Chennai City Police Commissioner and Additional Commissioner of Police, were on Thursday stripped of their current jobs amid a shocking charge of failure to act on a complaint of alleged serial sexual abuse of children by a well known business magnate in Tamil Nadu.

Last month an octogenarian Veeramani, a pioneer in granite exports and founder of Gem Granites, was arrested by the Chennai Police on a complaint of predatory sexual behaviour targetting minor girls over a period of several years. The case itself had garnered attention for the manner in which it was dealt by the police previously.

The police initially said a letter and pen drive containing explicit visuals were dropped off at an office of a NGO in Chennai by an unidentified person. The NGO had handed over the letter and pen driver to the Chennai police. It contained a video clip of a man resembling Veeramani sexually abusing a minor girl. As per digital footprint, the video was shot in 2019.

Police said a FIR was registered in connection with the case and Veeramani was questioned along with his long term acquaintance Shanthi at whose rented bungalow the crime was believed to have taken place. However, both denied any role and the businessman had claimed the man in the video was not him.

Thereafter the police made some vague enquires in the neighbourhood and decided there was no basis to proceed in the case and sought to drop further action and filed a report accordingly before the jurisdictional court in February this year. However, in July the court refused to accept the report and directed the police to probe it properly.

It was after the court’s nudge that the Chennai police arrested Veeramani, Shanthi and her husband and also claimed to have recovered original footage of the video clip. Besides, they said several affected girls have come forward to testify against Veeramani.

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Against this background, a Tamil Nadu Congress leader Ranjan Kumar made a startling revelation claiming he had lodged a formal complaint about the sexual abuse case as early as November 2024. “I handed over the complaint to the then Additional Commissioner of Police N Kannan. He assured that he will inform the Commissioner of Police A Arun about it. Later, an Inspector got in touch with me and I shared the video clip too. The police were only asking me if I knew the victim. I told them they will find evidence if they question Veeramani and Shanthi or conduct a raid at their house,” Kumar alleged.

“Now I don’t why the police is claiming they first got a complaint only from a NGO that too only last year,” he asked.

As Kumar’s revelation triggered a huge row, the Home Secretary issued an order stripping both Arun (serving as ADGP, Police Academy) and Kannan (serving as Coimbatore Police Commissioner) of their current posts. They were not given any new posting.