The Tamil Nadu police attempted to close the sexual assault case against industrialist R Veeramani, 84, due to insufficient evidence. However, a Pocso court rejected this request in February of this year, as reported by HT. The case remains active as legal proceedings continue.
Between February and August, police investigations revealed more murky details. The volunteer submitted a pen drive containing disturbing footage of an older man assaulting a minor girl claiming it was handed over to him by an unidentified man. Veeramani, however, wasn’t arrested.
The case against Veeramani – who has been in jail along with two accomplices since August — was lodged on October 6, 2025 after a volunteer working in a trust run by the industrialist filed a complaint with the police’s central crime branch (CCB). Besides, the police were not able to ascertain the age and identity of the victim in the purported video which was taken in 2019 as per the watermark in the surveillance video.
The police officer said the case was not officially closed but kept open on the condition that the investigations will be revived if fresh evidences surfaced.
Investigations have revealed that Veeramani might have committed similar crimes as far back as in 2003 or earlier, the officer said, adding that one earlier victim might have died by suicide.
One reason for the delay in arresting Veeramani under the Pocso Act was that the video footage of the crime was blurry, prevented police from confirming the suspect’s identity, an officer said on the condition of anonymity. “There were no other grounds to investigate further leading the police to drop the investigation,” he said.
