Veeramani case, Reporter TV raid and ECI dissent | South Central 94

South Central

This episode of South Central investigates three major institutional crises in Southern India. The hosts examine allegations of a police cover-up regarding

Key takeaways

• Tamil Nadu police allegedly delayed filing an FIR in the Veeramani case for nearly a year despite receiving complaints in late 2024.
• The Veeramani investigation involves serious allegations of sexual assault against minors by a prominent granite mining baron.

Main topics

• Veeramani sexual assault case
• Reporter TV newsroom raid

Notable quotes

What Tamil Nadu needs to be concerned with is the culture of silence around such a heinous crime.

Conclusion

The episode provides a sobering look at how political and corporate in

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:05) This is a podcast by The News Minute and you are listening to South Central. Speaker 4 (0:12) Hello and welcome to South Central, a TNM podcast where we put the South at the centre. I'm your weekly host, Dhania Rajendran, and joining me in the studio is my co-host, Pooja Prasanna. A lot to unpack today, Dhania. Three topics? Yes. Normally, South Central drops every Friday and we dive deep into two topics. We pick things happening in Southern India, but this week we are picking three topics. We're going to keep these discussions short, but it's about the Veeramani case in Tamil Nadu, what's happened to Reporter TV in Kerala, and the revelations in the Indian Express story against the Election Commission of India. Before we go to the headlines, I want to just quickly say this whole month we've been running a campaign where we've been asking you to become our subscribers. to help our legal fund. We've got a ton of cases against us and we are fighting each one of them. We don't quietly delete stories and run away. We actually fight corporates, politicians, etc. in courts. And we have a bunch of very wonderful lawyers who do that at minimum rates or sometimes nothing at all. But even then, we need a sizable amount because the cases are just increasing by the day. So if you have the money to spare, and I hope you do, please become a monthly subscriber because that ensures that we have some fund coming in every month. Despite me and Pooja asking in South Central, and let me explain, we've got, we still haven't met our target. So I hope that you will become a subscriber this week. Just Speaker 5 (1:42) a quick thought experiment if you've read and watched News Minute over years. You, I'm sure, have had at least one or two stories where you wondered, oh my God, they actually went there. I didn't think they'll go after this person or go after this story. We did that. But that inconvenienced someone and that came with an invoice back to us. So if you... Respect the work that we did at that time, whenever that was, then please contribute to our legal fund. Now on to our headlines. First from Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu Congress leader tells the News Minute he alerted Chennai Corp on Veeramani in November 2024. MP Ranjan Kumar, who's the president of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee's Scheduled Cast Department, told the News Minute that he met additional commissioner of police for South N. Karnan and handed over a complaint against Veeramani. And Karnan says that he informed the then police commissioner, Arun. We won't get into it. because that's also a first discussion. The second headline from Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister Vijay's push for privatization of Chennai airport marks a shift in Tamil Nadu government stance. Vijay urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to change the operator of the Chennai airport to an entity other than the airport's authority of India. I remember there used to be massive protests outside the Chennai airport at most times against privatization whenever I landed. So they cancelled Parandur and now they're saying, Speaker 4 (2:55) please give this to a private operator. Everybody is saying that is for Adani's sake. Moving Speaker 5 (3:00) on to Andhra Pradesh, APSIT concludes that 25-year-old Sai Krishna died after severe police beatings in Vijayawada after Sai Krishna's death. The SIT alerts Circle Inspector Nagaraju, Head Constable Ashok and Suresh wrapped his body in a blanket, carried it on a motorcycle to Vijayawada crematorium and stayed there until it was reduced to ashes. We Speaker 4 (3:21) have had multiple ground reports from Vijayawada, but I think it's one of the worst stories to have come out this year. Imagine in all police brutality, you at least have a body. Here, that family does not even have a body because they have burnt it in the crematorium. Speaker 5 (3:36) Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu launches Rs Speaker 4 (3:39) 11 Speaker 5 (3:39) ,359 crore worth of infra projects in Andhra, highlighting the changing economic dynamics in urban centres. Naidu emphasised the need to enhance livability and harness the rapidly growing weekend economy. In case you were wondering why, what is weekend economy? I don't know. Speaker 5 (3:56) Also, the sarcasm in my voice is because, I mean, it all sounds great, but you should really visit these cities in Andhra Speaker 4 (4:05) to know how much it's translated on ground. Speaker 5 (4:07) Moving on to another terrible story that came out of Telangana, Adilabad hospital fire, three other babies die. This makes the death toll total at five. A fire accident at the special newborn care unit ward of Government RIMS Hospital in Telangana's Adilabad. This happened on September 21st, that is on Monday. That killed the babies who were on ventilator care. Speaker 4 (4:30) Just so terrible. Speaker 5 (4:32) Varangal Airport land acquired, Chief Minister Rev. Threddi asked public to suggest a name. Union Civil Aviation Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu had earlier said that Varangal Airport could be completed in 30 months once the land is handed over to the Telangana Government to the airport's authority of India. Moving on to Karnataka. Karnataka cancels 16 licenses, suspends 8 over spurious drugs. This is a story that we have been following quite closely. So go and read all our reports there. Now, though, this includes Pfizer's Nelamangala Depot as it probes the alleged distribution of spurious medicines linked to a Bidadi repackaging and relabeling racket. There's been a lot of news on what this is, but we have kind of put together. This comes out on, Dania? I think next week. Next week, so you'll have to watch out. Dhanya has been very, very, very closely working on this story. So Dhanya on ground after a while. South Jinnah rape and murder case, Supreme Court orders reinvestigation. The Supreme Court's order comes more than a decade after South Jinnah was raped and murdered in October 2012 in Karnataka's Ujjur. Karnataka MLA Yashwant Patil resigns over denial of drought hit status for Indy, which is the constituency. Congress MLA Yashwant Raigowda V. Patil resigned from the Karnataka Assembly on September 23rd, protesting the exclusion of Indy and Charchan taluks from the state's drought hit list. He said repeated requests to the government had gone unheeded. I hope this is just this much and no other politics involved and I have a lot of respect for him if it was on these grounds. Speaker 4 (6:03) Moving on to Kerala, Kerala government forms SIT to probe graft charges Speaker 5 (6:07) against Pindaravichan and others in CMRL, the payoff case. The probe will be supervised by Additional Director General of Police, the Crime Branch, H. Venkatesh, with Superintendent of Police P. Vikraman leading the investigation. The Chief Minister of Kerala refuses to divulge details of individual who sponsored private flight and Defence Minister's foreign trips, Shahji's use of friend's car. Responding to questions at a press conference, VD Satishan said that there was nothing wrong with the trip as not a single penny was spent from the ex-checker. Speaker 4 (6:40) I mean, this had me baffled. This whole press meet, I'm sorry, I've been quiet all this while. So the Kerala Chief Minister has been using a... private flight or used a private flight. There's another minister called Shahji has been using somebody's Range Rover. And I think one more minister went on some trip abroad and everything is sponsored by friends or companies. And they're like, what is the problem? There is no issue here because the government money has not been used. I think they are all unaware of the term Office of Profit. Now, Office of Profit. is basically MLAs and MPs are not allowed to have any office of profit in the government because then they would be biased towards the government. That same should extend to taking any kind of money or favor from private parties because tomorrow there could be quid pro quo or it's already quid pro quo, right? Which is the reason why we, for example, question electoral bonds. Why should people give money to political parties without revealing who they are? Because we don't know what quid pro quo is for. And Satishan's press meet, I'm very sorry. He sounded so arrogant, shouting at the reporters, saying that why are you making a big deal out of it? If your government does not have money, ask your MLA to catch an auto and go, not to take a Range Rover from his friend and get two days permission. Tomorrow, what is that friend going to ask as a favour back? Also, I wonder how the Congress, Speaker 5 (7:57) Heikeman, looks at this because they've been making a big fuss over this, rightly so, when BJP, MLAs, ministers, all of them take private Speaker 4 (8:05) chats. That's it for the headlines for this week. Yes, so we have a power-packed show. We have three discussions, as I said, but the first one is from Tamil Nadu. So what happens when a rich and powerful man is accused of sexually assaulting minors? Will the police investigate the case properly or will they try to bury the case? When it comes to Chennai police and the case involving granite mining baron Veeramani, the answer is unfortunately becoming increasingly clear that they repeatedly try to shut the case down. Videos involving Veeramani apparently first surfaced in 2024, but it took the Chennai police an entire year. They filed the case in 2025 and they sought to close the case. But thankfully, a POXO judge hearing the case said that We cannot close the case. You must investigate it further. And that's opened a Pandora's box in the state. Who helped whom? Why were they helped? And when the victims were children, did the institutions really fail them? Did the system not do enough? Joining us to talk about this is Shabbir Ahmed from Chennai. Shabbir has been doing a lot of stories on the Veeramani case. Today, you have written a story. So has the Hindu Shabbir. about this Congress leader Ranjan Kumar now coming forward and saying that, I knew about these videos back in October 2024 itself, but the police never took a case. Explain to us what the story was. Speaker 1 (9:35) See, what is on paper is something which is totally different from what has surfaced now. What is on paper according to the closure report, the final report that was filed by the CCB in the Poxo Court. The police first came to know about this crime in October 2025. But now, Ranjan Kumar, a Congress leader, he has claimed that, in fact, he knew about it in November 2024 and he had approached the top officials of Chennai Police and he has also named the former Additional Commissioner of Chennai South, N. Kannan. And he has informed him that he gave a written complaint in his letter pad in which he has clearly mentioned that Veeramani, who is the founder of Gem Granites, has been abusing minor children. And the crime is taking place at Shanti's residence, which is in JJ Road in Alwarpet. And he has been asking cops to take action based on his complaint. But nothing has happened after that. In fact, when I spoke to him, he told me that, you know, immediately 10 days after he lodged this complaint with the police, an inspector from Anti-Vice Squad, which works under the CCB, they reached out to him and they got details about this entire case. And in fact, they wanted the video. In fact, You know, Ranjan Kumar had the video because Shanti had shown him the video and he has recorded on his phone and they wanted this video for further investigation. So that's the WhatsApp message exchange that he has also, you know, shown to us. And based on that, you know, he was hoping that the Chennai police will take action, but nothing happened after that. From December onwards, he stopped following this case because basically he's a politician and Congress was... part of the DMK alliance then. So he did not want to pursue the case and it was election season and all of it. And after that, what appears to be there on paper is from October 2025, the police started their investigations. And then, you know, they went to question Shanti. They questioned Veeramani. Veeramani denied all the allegations. And then they carried out searches at Shanti's residence. They couldn't find any prosecutable evidence. And after that, they, you know, questioned someone who was running a puncture shop in that road. where Shanti's house is located. And the man said that no outsiders were allowed inside Shanti's house. Then they questioned someone who was working with a private hospital in the administrative department. He confirmed to the police that outsiders were not allowed inside Shanti's house because he was aware of it. And based on that, they concluded the investigation and they filed a final report in the POCSO court saying that they don't have any prosecutable evidence to conduct an investigation. or even fix the accused in this case. So they want to drop further action from this case. And this is a final report. There have been several clarifications that have been given by the DMK leaders, particularly N.R. Ilango, who is a Rajya Sabha member and who heads the legal wing of the DMK. He says that it's not a final report. In fact, in future, if they got any kind of evidence linking to this case, probably the police would have, you know, continued their investigation. So it was not a final report. Facts are very clear that it was a final report that the Chennai police had filed in the Pokso court. And thanks to the Pokso court judge who rejected this final report and ordered a reinvestigation. And that's how this entire case started unraveling. Speaker 4 (13:17) No, Shabir, I just want to keep put this whole timeline, right? October 2024 is when Ranjan Kumar says he gets the visuals from Shanti. And I just want to say, Pooja. I don't think Ranjan Kumar is an innocent party in any of this. Neither is he a simple whistleblower. That is very evident because look at his statement. I was listening to the interview that he gave Shabbir. It was around six minutes in Tamil. He says that, oh, Shanti had a real estate problem. Then Shanti came crying to me because another politician was threatening her. I went to her house. She gave me bajji. And on the TV, she put the picture of the sexual assault. She just went out of the room and I recorded these visuals. It sounds so dubious. That is one thing. The second thing I want to point out is that in the closure report, the police said that this was CCTV footage. There was a CCTV inside the room which recorded and the date on it was 2019. Now, if you see screenshots of what Ranjan Kumar has sent to the police, it was not CCTV, I think. I think it was a very normal camera which was kept inside that room to record these visuals, either by Shanti herself or by her husband to trap Veeramani, right? Which is a good thing, but I'm just saying that the camera is not a CCTV. The motive is still suspect, no, Sanya? So, Ranjan Kumar... tells Shabbir, oh, I followed up till December 2024. Then I got very busy and I wanted, you know, I wanted a seat in elections. So let us be very clear that this is a dubious politician who is trying to perhaps extort. Using this. Yeah. And he had the bloody visual of a child being sexually assaulted. And all that he did was write a complaint and then, OK, meet and forget about it. If he's a politician, why did he not come forward and talk? And the children were from Dalit community. He's a Dalit leader, which is perhaps also the reason why this woman went to him for whatever her objectives were. Right. So I'm saying there are so many. people who are silent around this whole thing and that frustrates me the most. The first is Veeramani and his family who obviously must have known that this is happening. The Shanti and her husband and all of his other lackeys like there's a guy who's arrested called Ganesh. There is some union leader. All these people, Shabir can tell us who they are. Then comes a ring of the politicians from outside. who are made aware of this. For whatever reasons it is, they don't make it public. They go to the police and then they just smother the entire thing for two years. The next ring is the police itself. There's an additional commissioner, perhaps the commissioner of police himself knew. And literally, who is bothered about the children here? That is what angers me the most, the culture of silence. And unfortunately, it will also involve... Some of the families of these children, because grooming does not happen in one go, right? You don't send a child to an older person and immediately there's sexual assault. There is so much of literature, so much of research on how grooming happens that happens in stages, which means some of these families could also have been aware that something was going wrong. So I think, you know, while we can talk about the politics, we can talk about the police. What Tamil Nadu needs to be very concerned about is the culture of silence around such a heinous crime. And that culture of silence comes from family, comes from society, from the police, everyone. That is what should be shocking us now. Shabbir, tell me the ring of people who have been caught now and without maybe taking names, who all are they suspecting? Speaker 1 (16:47) Danya, as of now, the police has arrested Veeramani, Shanti. Shanti's husband Mahendra Simhan and Veeramani's close aide who was travelling with him for the past 23 years. Now he works for different companies what the police says, Ganesan. And then they are also looking out for a person called Prakash who is son of SRMU which is one of the biggest railway unions in the country. Leader Kanhaiya's son Prakash. He is He is somewhere abroad is what the police is telling us. At the moment, he has also been summoned. And police are also looking out for other names, people who are involved. One is Ranjan Kumar because he is the one who has first gone and approached the police with a complaint. We do not know what the intentions are and what was the kind of... Speaker 1 (17:44) what transpired before Ranjan Kumar reaching out to the police and lodging this complaint. And then