Chennai: Granite baron, Veeramani, 84, was on Saturday arrested on charges of sexually abusing a minor girl at an acquaintance’s house in Teynampet. A couple, who were his business associates, were also arrested for facilitating the sexual abuse. The arrests were made by the anti-vice squad (AVS) of the central crime branch (CCB) police.The case was originally registered on Oct 6, 2025 after a child welfare volunteer handed over a pen drive containing a video that purportedly showed an elderly man sexually abusing a minor girl. After preliminary inquiry, it was referred to the anti-vice squad.However, after inquiry, the squad sought closure of the case and filed a ‘further action dropped’ report to the special court for Pocso Act cases in Chennai. It submitted that the incident, as per the pen drive, had occurred in 2019 and that there was DCR recording of the data. Also, the identity as well as the whereabouts of the girl, presumed to be a minor, was not known.The two facilitators — Mahendra Simha, 64, and his wife, Shanthi, 60– also said no such incident took place at their residence. Both the couple and Veeramani said the man in the video was not him and that they had never seen such a girl. Citing similar eyewitness statements, the anti-vice squad filed the closure report.However, rejecting the closure request on Aug 19, the special judge said: “ Final report not accepted. Further investigation is ordered. Further investigation shall be completed or progress shall be reported in four weeks.”On Saturday, police issued a statement saying they had later established the identity of the man in the video as industrialist Veeramani, founder of Gems Granites. They also said that Veeramani had rented a house in Teynampet and entrusted its management to his business associates Mahendra Simha and his wife Shanthi. According to police, a minor girl worked at the house and Veeramani frequently visited the premises.The Anti-Vice Squad arrested Veeramani, Mahendra Simha and Shanthi on Saturday and got them remanded in judicial custody. Chennai city commissioner of police A Amalraj instructed his subordinates to investigate whether the minor had been subjected to sexual abuse by more than one person.
