Court grants two-day police custody of ‘Gem Granites’ Veeramani

A Special Court for POCSO cases has permitted the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to take ‘Gem Granites’ owner R. Veeramani (84) into police custody for two days for questioning in a case.

The SIT is investigating complaints against Veeramani over alleged sexual abuse of minors. He was arrested in August in the first case and was subsequently arrested on October 7 in a second case, which was registered based on a complaint lodged by the mother of a minor girl from Chennai. He has been lodged in prison under judicial custody.

The SIT had filed a petition before the Chennai POCSO Special Court seeking five days of police custody to interrogate Veeramani in connection with the second case. In its petition, the SIT said his custodial interrogation was necessary to ascertain the identities of those who had links with him.

When the petition came up for hearing before Judge S. Padma, Veeramani’s counsel opposed the plea, arguing that the police had already conducted an exhaustive investigation and further custodial interrogation was unwarranted. After hearing both sides, the judge permitted the SIT to take Veeramani into custody for two days.

The judge directed the SIT to interrogate him from 7.30 p.m. on Thursday until 7.30 p.m. on Saturday and ordered that he be produced before the court on Saturday.