Chennai, In the high-profile POCSO case involving well-known granite businessman R Veeramani , the Central Crime Branch has come to know that more minor victims were subjected to sexual harassment before 2003 or even earlier, police here said on Saturday.
However, after police attempted to file a closure report citing an inability to identify the victim, the special POCSO Court rejected it and mandated a reinvestigation. Provisions of the SC/ST Act were subsequently added after it was established that one survivor belongs to a SC community, enabling government-mandated financial assistance and statutory relief. Providing vital information of the ongoing investigation, the senior officer revealed that a retrieved text message sent by a co-accused to Veeramani directly referenced a 2003 incident involving the alleged suicide of a minor girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by him. The primary survivor from the 2019 video clip was established to be a minor at the time of the offence.
A senior police official, who declined to disclose the number of additional victims, said that investigators suspect that the systemic sexual exploitation of young girls from impoverished backgrounds may span more than two decades.
Additional victims’ statements have been recorded before the Special Court for POCSO Cases under the Madras High Court, police added. Subsequently, police efforts led to the identification of multiple survivors, minors at the time of the alleged offenses, whose statements were recorded before the court.
