- 39 minutes ago
A panel discussion examines the controversial handling of the GM Veeramani POCSO case by the Chennai Police. Former IPS officer Sanjay Sahay raises sharp questions over the initial closure of the investigation, noting, 'police was in a hurry to close the case' despite the presence of digital evidence and CCTV footage. He argues that digital and forensic evidence forms the core of modern criminal investigation and asserts that investigative omissions should be penalised. Activist Vaishnavi Prasad and BJP leader Kasturi Shankar highlight institutional negligence and systemic cover-ups that delayed justice for minor victims over years. Political analyst Shalin Maria alleges political shielding and deliberate police inaction before a special POCSO court overturned the closure report to order a reinvestigation. The panel demands complete accountability from law enforcement authorities.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Let me open this up. Joining us on this broadcast, we've got Kasturi Shankar, actor and BJP leader,
00:06Mr. Sanjay Sahai, former IPS, Shalin Maria, political analyst, as well as Vaishnavi Prasad,
00:12who's a women's rights activist. Mr. Sanjay Sahai, I want to understand from you, sir, in your
00:16expertise, how exactly can really, and you know, I think this is a question everyone's asking,
00:22can we expect, sir, clear-cut, a fair probe from the police when they're looking into their own
00:29department? If you go by the antecedents of this case, and by antecedents, I primarily mean the way
00:35this case has been handled so far by the Chennai police, I think there is certainly a reason for
00:41suspicion whether this will go through a fair investigation. Now, what is very, very critical
00:46in this case is the CCTV footage. And I don't know any forensic expert in his mind could come up
00:54with
00:54the idea saying that the person has not been identified. If the person has not been identified,
00:59it is not forensically capable of identifying. Then how was the person identified in the subsequent
01:05reinvestigation of the case? So that is, I think, the biggest critical point, and which somehow gives
01:11us an indication that might be, because these are allegations as it stands now, but overwhelming
01:17overwhelming evidences show the direction that police was in a hurry to close the case.
01:25Now, the victim was not identified, but Veermani was identified. That is my understanding of the
01:31huge amount of evidence which is there in the public domain. If Veermani was identified,
01:36the year was known. There are variety of other circumstantial evidence, digital evidence,
01:41and so many other financial transactions as the case may be, which would enable the police to get
01:47into the investigation in a manner where you reach the logical culmination. Police decided not to get
01:54into any of these case, any of these things. And the person who is in the midst of this particular
02:00criminal case, he is an influential person. And he had been known to people in Tamil Nadu,
02:05that is what I presume. And when this person was involved, Chennai police should have taken double
02:10care as to not get into some sort of an area where they land into a problem.
02:16No, so do you buy this, sir, that in five months they couldn't get evidence? They're saying they
02:20visited neighbors. Iron Man didn't give details. They're saying that, you know, the footage was
02:25too blurry. Contrast that to now two weeks, all of the, many of the accused at least, many of the
02:31aides have been arrested.
02:33See, very clear cut, I'll tell you, I don't buy this argument. I'm a CCTV and a video footage expert
02:38in my
02:38own right. I'm a computer vision expert. And who is the person who certifies that forensically they
02:45will not be able to examine and give a clear cut? Because there has to be examiner of electronic
02:50evidence. Who is the person who will certify the video footage as to what the forensic examination
02:56happened? And I would also like to know what tools they used for the forensic examination.
03:01So they were might be, see, let's understand one very simple thing today, that the human evidence
03:08is peripheral to any investigation today. And it is only complimentary and supplementary. So you
03:15establish the facts only through digital evidence, forensic evidence, data, metadata and variety of
03:23things. Why this case came into light is primarily because there was a pen drive who somebody dropped
03:29to some activist and that activist brought it to the Chennai police cyber crime brand, which
03:34primarily means that it is that digital evidence which has literally brought this investigation
03:40or initiated this investigation. And they should have concentrated only on that. And when
03:47Virmani was established, what were the other investigative activities did they take place? I don't think,
03:55I don't find, of whatever is available in the public domain, I don't find anything conclusive
04:02to reach a conclusion that this case cannot be under any circumstances with all the bite of Chennai
04:10police, not be investigated.
04:12No sir, and you know, anyone has questions, lack of evidence. How is it that suddenly in a matter of
04:16two
04:16weeks, all of the evidence has been unearthed and they've got enough to go ahead and not just
04:20nab Viramani but the others. And I'm just going to put out the images of all of the others who
04:25are also
04:25involved in this scandal along with Viramani who helped him commit these crimes. We've got their
04:32pictures on our screens as well, Shanti Mahendra Simhan. The reason we've blurred Shanti's image is
04:38because she claims she's a victim herself and so keeping that in mind, we're showing due regard, due
04:46sensitivity, we're not showing her picture. But this couple ran that house for Viramani, identified victims for
04:55Viramani, and ensured everything was kept under wraps. Vaishnavi Prasad is also with us on this
05:00broadcast. Vaishnavi, I cannot begin to imagine, you know, what this does in so many other high profile
05:06cases where a powerful man is involved in exploitation and sexual assault cases. And then, you know, you send
05:12across a message that they can get away scot-free.
05:15Yeah, I mean, I think at this point child sexual abuse is a global, you know, epidemic, Akshita.
05:21And trivializing it to the point where we reduce it and say it's an Epstein is again you're putting
05:27the narrative on the shoulders of the powerful people who get away with this nonsense. And then
05:32the people who are the survivors, they end up being supporting characters in their own trauma.
05:38And, you know, what Sur said was absolutely right. You know, you have a video coming to you. As a
05:45person, I'm coming and giving, if I hand the police a video of a child being abused, regardless of who
05:49it
05:49is, it is the moral duty of the state to investigate it and find out who that is. You can't
05:55just say,
05:56oh, we don't know who that is, or, you know, we have no corroboration. Find the evidence. There's
06:00clearly a video. You can verify if it's original or not. And then, you know, I mean, I'm glad that
06:05the
06:05court overturned this whole thing and said, continue the investigation. But it's a sad,
06:09sad affair that it had to be even closed in the first place, right? So we're in very disturbing
06:15times when there are, you know, so many cases pending in the courts and so many cases that have
06:21passed the one year mark. And in the end alone, there are about 18,000 plus cases pending. And,
06:27you know, you have this case, which is high profile, and you still manage to just sort of,
06:31it just sort of just goes under the radar because there is some incompetence or some
06:35inadequate investigation or some institutional failure somewhere. I think it's a very sad day
06:40for all of us. You know, I wouldn't even say it was an inadequate investigation. I would say it's
06:44influence, Vaishnavi, that led to this probe being scuttled intentionally. It wasn't an inadequate
06:50investigation. It was on purpose that this was completely scuttled. Kasturi, therefore,
06:55do you think that right now there is a need to hand over this probe to a higher authority?
07:01First off, I, you know, first off, let me just say, I cannot even begin, I don't have words to
07:09sympathize with the victims who have all been long waiting, you know, they waited for, I believe,
07:17the first time something came to light was in 2019. But even before that, in 2003, Akshita, 2003,
07:2523 years ago, there was a very suspicious murder of a 13-year-old. And Mr. Veeramani's name was
07:34bandied about then. It was there in Chinese whispers, and it quickly died a suspicious death itself,
07:42right? And then nobody thought any of the worse of it until 2019 happened. And from 2019 onwards,
07:49I mean, can you imagine, you know, somebody said inadequacy. Madam, this is not about the inadequacy
07:57of the police. This is about the avarice and the absolute evil, the absolute vice that the police
08:06have, or even investigative authorities, why blame just the cops? There's several people rotten to the
08:13core in the system who have been involved in this covering up. I'm just saying, if you were born
08:20of a mother, if you had sisters, if you have girl children, could you even think?
08:28No, you know, in this particular case, they, what they did is these aides of Veeramani, whose pictures
08:35were showing, what they did is they would prey on girls who were living in slums. So their family would
08:42never have the courage to speak out against a granite baron, against someone who's so
08:47influential. And the question that will come up, I'll bring in Shalin on this as well. Shalin,
08:51it's disappointing, honestly, for me, someone who's grown up in Chennai, who's always heard about
08:57how powerful the police has been in controlling law and order in the city, that this has happened in
09:01that very same city, that the Chennai police clearly was compromised on this.
09:09I don't say they've been compromised also. It was a criminal plan by the police. The police knew,
09:15the police was doing this along with more conspirators, co-perpetrators. And the government
09:21knew, because you can see Raghubadi is doing damage control. And you see N.R. Ilango, the senior
09:27advocate, going ahead on press, on a press meeting, lying on his, you know, teeth. He's saying that,
09:35you know, the case was not closed, and he will go ahead and do anybody who's going to say the
09:39case
09:40was closed. He's a senior advocate. He should know that we did have the closure report for almost
09:45three weeks. And it says the police closed the report. They said no further action needed.
09:51And this, you know what, Yasmin should, you know, this, everything comes under the purview of the
09:57commissioner of police. They would have taken it to the police. Police have done the investigation.
10:02And closure, again the police, and the CM was informed. I didn't know until yesterday that Jem
10:08Veeramani was connected to Dravidar Kalagam and DMK. His whole family is connected
10:15to DMK. No, how are you saying that, Shalin? How are you saying there's a connection?
10:19We have the record where he himself on the video says that his family is actually connected to DMK
10:26for more than, from the time of his birth. He says he was named after Veeramani, the Dravidar
10:33Kalagam's head, because his father saw Veeramani talking on the, you know, stage when he was 10 years
10:39old. So he went home and named his kid Veeramani. And then this guy has been part of most of
10:45the
10:45Dravidar Kalagam events. The whole night I was sitting and going through the list of events where he was
10:52along with Veeramani. He's been in events. His father were contested from Tirachankoda, you know,
10:59on behalf of DMK. His whole, his sister has married a DMK MP. So this guy is so proud. He
11:06calls himself a
11:07self-respect guy, Veeramani. The perpetrator calls himself a periarist, a self-respect guy. And he
11:14goes ahead and he says, you know, he talks about corruption and all those things. And he wants the
11:20DMK government. We've seen all the records. Now, you know, why I'm pointing out this is because these
11:26are the people who save these men. These are the connections that save these men. I'm telling you,
11:33no businessman in this country can commit a crime without a political party knowing it.
11:40I'll tell you this. I don't want to jump the gun and get into a political fight right now. I'm
11:44going
11:44to wait for the investigation to throw up those details. Because, you know, whether the police here
11:48were corrupt, whether they acted on their own, was their political influence, I'm hoping that the
11:53investigation will throw more light on that. So I don't want to jump the gun and, you know, establish
11:57this as a fact right now. So, yes, there's a lot of chatter on this on social media. But I
12:02think we
12:02also have to be extremely careful with what's thrown up in this particular case and wait for,
12:08hopefully, the cops to give us more details. But also...
12:11But Ashita, when that is the case, I'm going to just tell the last point.
12:15If that is the case, then we have to blame DMK. Why should we not take DMK's name? DMK was
12:20the
12:20government in power. DMK was the government in power who...
12:24Shalit, don't forget, they tried to cover up Niana Chekaran. We still don't have a resolution in
12:29Bengavayal. They are cover-up specialists.
12:31Yeah, we spoke about that too. And not that just the Commissioner of Police was Arun. So
12:35obviously, I'll take the name of Arun. Akshita, I'm not scared of Arun. I will take his name.
12:40Because this is a very big thing which happened in Chennai. Most of them, Dalit children, children,
12:45POCSO cases won. Suicide also noted. And they enabled this man to go ahead and be free for this
12:52four, five, eleven months so that he can do more damage.
12:55You know, the reality is, unfortunately, Vaishnavi, the reality is, perhaps, that this kind of a
13:00racket went on for years, for decades, and nobody spoke up. The only reason we're talking about it
13:07today is because of that special POCSO court judge, S. Padma, who decided that no, this is not going to,
13:12you know, just be closed off and shut off. There must be an investigation. We'd never have known otherwise.
13:18Yeah, I mean, I agree. Like I said, the court intervention was a really good thing. But the
13:22fact that it was even necessary in the first place is disturbing. And, you know, are we going back to
13:28this whole point of the fact that, you know, that it's been going on for so long as, I think,
13:32as
13:32Katsuri rightly pointed out, there has been some sort of talk about, allegedly, this going on since 2003,
13:39right? And it's just, it's shocking, because this is not an outlier, right? This is not something that's
13:45just one person, an exceptional case. What is exceptional in this country now is justice.
13:51We've normalized this kind of, you know, child abuse. Every day we're reading about
13:56rapes and sexual assault and, you know, minors getting murdered and brutally killed. And,
14:01you know, it's just, it's becoming more and more disturbing day by day. And when something like
14:06this happens right under your nose, in a state that claims that it's extremely safe for women,
14:12and you see the police flaunting their power and protecting these people in power,
14:18the common man suffers in the end. It's so brazen, the manner in which it was done.
14:23It is. It is extremely brazen. And honestly, I don't need to know which political party was
14:29responsible for me to demand that the system protect women and children. I tend to believe
14:34the victim. For me, the victim is the most important person. And right now, I think that is the most
14:39important thing. We need to focus and not make the, you know, I mean, this needs to be,
14:43this needs to be solved in a way where it's beneficial for the victim. It's beneficial for
14:49these children who are probably going through the biggest trauma of their life. Rightly said,
14:55it was, you know, it's years and years they have been suffering. And we're not angry enough about
14:58this, I feel. I think that the any amount of anger that we as women hold for this incident
15:03towards the men. And historically, we have seen this before, Akshwata. I mean,
15:07you know exactly what I'm talking about. This state, this country has been protecting
15:13sexual assaulters and rapists and, you know, freeing them and letting them roam free on the
15:18streets and electing them into power consistently. So, I'm not surprised that this is happening.
15:23I'm not, I'm, but I'm, I'm still very, very, very angry. And I think every single woman,
15:30whether you have children or not, your blood should be boiling right now. Your blood should
15:34be boiling right now. You should be taking the streets and protesting for justice because this
15:38is just so messed up. And you know, for each of us who's feeling so outraged,
15:43when I read the details of what's emerged so far of the cover up and how blatant that was,
15:48despite knowing the kind of allegations here against this man, that people actually said,
15:53it's okay, let's file that closure report and ignore it completely. Let him be out and about
15:57and perhaps continue committing such crimes. It's not just about my blood boiling, but I do feel that
16:03maybe, you know, we're all waking up too late to the crime. And who do you blame for that? There
16:07was
16:07no way for any of us to know that something like this was happening right under our noses in the
16:11heart
16:11of Chennai. And Kasturi, that's where... I think the scary bit is that, you know,
16:16two weeks ago, they were like, oh, we couldn't find the CCTV. We couldn't find this. We couldn't
16:20find that. And now suddenly they've uncovered the exact evidence that they couldn't find.
16:24They couldn't find the identity of the child, nothing. But now they have extra evidence suddenly
16:29available. So what was grainy footage now is fine. Now is acceptable evidence.
16:34Grainy footage now acceptable evidence. They've got now aides who've been arrested. Before this,
16:39they were saying only Iron Man is not willing to speak outside the house. Neighbors have nothing
16:43to say. Complete turnaround, Kasturi. Yeah. Actually, I have one more question from
16:50earlier on. I wanted to say, you know, the case was actually closed. They submitted the cops,
16:58Yasmin and Arun, they submitted a report to the court statement saying, you know, we are not able to
17:03proceed any further because all our leads are cold. We, you know, we can't find anything.
17:08Nothing is available. And I'm like, I read the entire report. Okay. And I'm
17:16We've lost our connection, Kasturi. But final word, Mr. Sahai, to you. I think what every one of us
17:22has spoken of is the fact that now everyone's going to raise questions to the police force.
17:27There have been a lot of questions about politicians. Now there are questions about how corrupt a police
17:33force can be, sir, that this kind of an investigation can be scuttled in such a manner,
17:38so brazenly, that senior cops perhaps thought they'd get away with it by filing a closure report
17:42so easily. So there are three points. One is, you're talking women getting enraged. I think
17:48every man worth his salt will also get enraged. I'm glad. And so am I. And so am I. So
17:53that's
17:54point number one. Point number two, with regards to the professionalism of Chennai police, as far as
17:59this particular case is concerned, there was a smoking gun for last one or two decades. A smoking gun for
18:06police means that there has to be a back-end intelligence work which should happen. It is
18:11not only investigation of a particular case. And thirdly, and most importantly, until or less
18:17we make omissions in criminal investigation, themselves crimes, things are not going to change,
18:25which primarily means in simple language that a police officer can get away with shoddy investigation.
18:31My whole contention is that in case there is a shoddy investigation and if it is proven so,
18:37that itself becomes a crime and he should be charged with that, investigated upon, charged, cheated,
18:43and let him face the music of law. Otherwise, you are completely aloof of that investigative process.
18:50No, I hope, I hope that the police takes it upon themselves now to re-instill faith in them by
18:57ensuring a fair investigation. That is the only damage control I can imagine right now,
19:01that they carry forward an investigation that's fair, that's impartial. Whoever's part of this
19:07network is busted. Whoever helped shield Veeramani is also exposed. I'd like to thank all of you for
19:13joining me on this broadcast, Kasturi, Shalin, as well as Vaishnavi and Mr. Sanjay Sahai. We are going to
19:18continue tracking the latest on this, every single update on the investigation we'll be tracking here on
19:24India today.
Comments